by Clive Harold
He trudged on, down the drive, towards the cowsheds. Funny, he thought to himself, how nervous the place made him these days, after all the years he'd spent here. Especially at night. He looked up at the dark silhouettes of the trees against the pale, moonlit sky and was aware how every shadow made him feel jumpy. He, of all people. He, who had spent a major part of his life wandering around the countryside at night. It was ridiculous. Or was it?
He turned the light on outside the cowsheds, bathing the enormous concrete forecourt in a fierce glare. It made him feel better, but evidently did nothing to console the cows, who were agitated, as they had increasingly seemed to be for the last few weeks. Several times they'd stampeded while out grazing in the same field and had gone totally crazy for no reason, charging, en masse, through electrified or barbed wire fences, risking being badly cut up just to escape into the next field.
He slid back the heavy iron locks on the shed gates and walked inside, stopping at each and every stall to check on each cow, looking for signs that they were coming into season and would be ready for insemination. Each one would be in season for only twelve hours at a time, so it was important to be sure. Similarly, if any of them was ready to drop a calf she would have to be taken out and put on her own.
It was an hour before he had checked all one hundred cows to his satisfaction and had returned to the glare of the forecourt and securely locked and bolted the heavy iron gates. He was about to go across to the far side of the forecourt and turn off the lights for the night, when he heard the phone ringing, back at the farmhouse.
He looked at his watch. One o'clock. Good God, who on earth would be phoning at that time of the morning? He felt a slight sinking feeling in his stomach, the sort that telegrams, and phone calls at that hour of the night, normally give you.
It was only about a hundred feet from the sheds to the house and he'd answered the phone within a minute. 'Hello, who's that?' he asked, aware of the anxiety in his voice.
'Billy? Billy Coombs?' He recognised the voice. It was Martin Chambers, from one of the neighbouring farms.
'Martin. Is that you? What the devil do you want at this time of the morning?' he asked, but good-humouredly. 'Now listen to me, Billy,' said the gruff voice, 'what the hell do you think you're playing at? Your whole damn herd - must be a hundred of them - have been rampaging all over my land for more than an hour now, making a hell of a mess. They woke me up just before midnight with all the noise they were making. They've damn near ruined all the feed for my herd, trampling it into the ground as they've been stampeding around my sheds...'
Billy chuckled to himself. 'No, you're wrong there, Martin,' he corrected him, 'they're not mine. Couldn't be mine. I've only just come from my own sheds, where I've been with my herd for the past hour. I only left them to answer the phone...'
'Well, it's about time you did answer it,' came the angry retort, 'I've been ringing you over and over for the past hour without a reply. You can't have been with your cows - you were probably in bed, am I right?'
'No you're bloody not. I told you, Martin, I was in with my cows. If you had rung, I'd have heard the ringing. Anyway, what's it matter, they're not my damn cows anyway, as l said...
He was about to hang up, when the voice, calmer now, said: 'Billy, I know they're your cows because they've all got yellow and green tags in their ears - that's your marking isn't it?' Billy caught his breath. Martin was right of course. That was his marking - and only his. What the bloody hell was going on here?
'Look, Martin, just hold on a minute,' he told him, banging the telephone down on the hall table and hurrying out into the darkness. This was ridiculous. He'd been standing by the open front door, looking at the cowsheds during the entire conversation and there was nothing unusual to see - just the illuminated sheds, locked and bolted, with the cows bedded down for the night, just as he'd left them. He shook his head, tutting and chuckling to himself as he jogged down the drive and into the brightly-lit forecourt once again. One look over the gate and into the first set of stalls would confirm that they were there. What on earth that damn fool was going on about, was anybody's guess. Green and yellow tags indeed. He must be colour blind.
He gave a cursory glance obvious. And stepped back, there. The stalls - every one of them -were empty. Just the straw he had left the cows remained. The cows - fifty of them - had gone. Vanished. (Only ill.right>)
over the gasping. gate to confirm the There was nothing What about the others? He moved around to the adjacent gate and looked into the gloom of the second shed. He could hear no rustling movements of straw, nothing at all. Complete stillness. There was nothing there. They were empty, too. Fifty cows, just vanished.
His hands dropped to his sides, his knuckles scraping against the big iron padlock and chain that held the gates firmly shut. He looked down. Still locked. Firmly bolted. Then he looked up again and into first one shed and then the other.
Nothing. Completely empty. But it was ridiculous, impossible. He'd been with them, just five minutes earlier. Or less. He'd only taken his eyes off the sheds for thirty seconds, the time it had taken him to answer the phone. Even if they had got out which was absolutely impossible - they could never have got up the drive and past the farmhouse in less than fifteen minutes and he'd been there, in the drive, or looking at the drive all the time. Impossible. It couldn't have happened. He looked into the sheds for a third time. Empty. One hundred cows, just disappeared, vanished into thin air. Or rather, vanished and appeared at Martin's farm. But how – and how could they have been there for over an hour, when he had been with them here for an hour?
He turned slowly around and made his way up the drive to the farmhouse. What could have happened? What was happening? Was he going mad? Hallucinating? None of it any sense. 'Martin...' His voice sounded as dazed as he felt, 'you to be right. I don't understand any of this, but you to be right. They are my cows. They just...' paused and reconsidered his explanation. If he didn't believe it himself, how could he expect Martin to believe it?
'….they just seem to have got out without my noticing - I’ll be right down in the car to pick them up. I'll leave the car with you and herd them in myself...'
He put the phone down, went into the lounge and flopped down into his arm-chair. He’d have a quick cigarette and collect his thoughts before he left.
'Bill? Ah, there you are, love. All finished for the night? Ready for a cup of tea before bed?' It was Pauline. Bless her heart, she'd waited up for him, keep him company. He could only shrug in greeting. She noticed the bewildered look on his face. 'What's up, love? Take your coat off, put your feet up and tell me all about it...' She reached out to help him off with the donkey jacket, he shied away.
'Can't take it off, love. I've got to go out - down to Dale Farm down the road...'
At this time of night, whatever for?' She looked amazed. Billy looked up at her and studied her expression. There was no fear there - there hadn't been for such a long time now - but how could he keep this to himself? He had to tell someone and she'd hear him herding the cows past the house in a minute in any case. He'd risk telling her. He had to.
'Sit down, love,' he instructed her, 'and listen to this...'
When he'd finished, he looked at her long and hard to solicit a
reaction. For a second or two he wondered if even she would
believe him. It was all so ridiculous, so impossible, so pointless. She nodded quietly to herself, when he'd finished telling her. Her head bowed, her hands clasped tightly together. Then she looked up, frowning, but not registering the fear or panic he had seen on her face so frequently over previous months.
'You believe me, love?'
'Don't be so daft, love. Of course I do,' she murmured, looking up at him. 'It's happening all over again, isn't it? They're back, or it's back again, isn't it? Dear God, Billy, what are we going to do? What does it all mean – a whole herd of cows vanishing and appearing somewhere else at a different time? Why? For what possible reason? Wha
t are we going to do about it?'
For a moment he thought she was going to crack again. Then he noticed her expression grow resolute and the momentary panic dissipated. She stood up and offered her hand for him to take. He took it and she pulled him to his feet. 'Well, for a start you'd better go down to Chambers's and collect the herd. Get them locked away, I'll make a cup of tea and we'll go straight to bed when you get back. We'll try and work it out in the morning, but we'd better do as we normally do and keep it from the kids...'
She pushed him out of the door. How strange, he thought to himself, that it was she who was now stronger than he. Ironical, too, for hadn't it been he and Keiron who alone had shared the most recent sightings and kept them from her? Just as well, he reasoned, for if she thought that what had happened tonight wasn't an isolated incident, she'd not have been able to cope with it so well.
He went to start the car. Nothing. It was dead. Nothing worked, not the lights, nor the engine. Just as before. He slumped forward on to the steering wheel for a moment, his forehead resting on the backs of his hands. Oh God, no. Not another one. It was only half a mile. He'd have to walk. He got out of the car and looked ahead of him into the inky blackness of the drive that wound up ahead of him. Only the faintest silver glow from a crescent moon lit the way ahead. He'd made the walk many times before up the dark, tree-lined drive and it had never unnerved him. But it did now. Terribly.
He was even glad to meet Martin when he eventually got to Dale Farm, though the farmer was obviously less than happy to see him, and it was easy to see why. The mess his herd had made was dreadful, with sacks of carefully stored grain upturned, scattered and trampled everywhere. It took him twenty minutes to round the panicky herd together and another half an hour to herd them down the lane, past the farmhouse and into the cowsheds again. He spared Martin any explanation, but had just apologised, said he didn't know how it could have happened and then left.
Pauline was waiting for him on the porch with tea and sympathy after he'd got the job done. He was about to start talking about it again, when she pressed a finger to his lips. Never mind, love,' she whispered, 'tomorrow we'll talk about it...'
Billy nodded, his eyes downcast. Up until now, he'd managed to cope, but this was ... well ... this was just beyond him. If this could happen, anything could happen. The thought haunted him as he went to sleep.
*
This time, thought Pauline as she sneaked out of their bed, it's my turn to let Billy sleep off the trauma of the night before. She tucked him up more firmly under the duvet. Let him sleep on for a bit. She'd get breakfast for Clinton and get him off to work and then get the kids' breakfast and get them off to school and, for once, Billy could be last down. They could talk before he started work.
She didn't call him until nearly ten o'clock and he was none too pleased to begin with, but eventually grateful for chance to relive the experiences of the night before and try to get them into perspective. Not that it ultimately did any good. In fact it was use-less. What had happened quite simply defied explanation.
'That's the worst of it, love,' he had said to her, 'this is so bizarre, so unlike any of the other things that have happened to other people in the area, I'm not even sure if those BUFORA people would believe us, and they've heard just about everything. I don't know, I just don't know. The best thing is just to keep absolutely quiet about it, OK?'
She agreed with him, secretly hoping nothing else of a similar nature would happen. Or worse.
She could tell by his expression as he left, that he felt the same.
*
So unlike him, thought Pauline as she tipped the leftovers of that morning's breakfast into the rubbish bin. For Billy to leave a single scrap of food, something definitely had to be wrong. Mind you, all things considered it was hardly surprising. The experience of the previous week was obviously still preying on his mind. He'd once said to her that he thought he was going mad or having a nervous breakdown. He'd later said he was joking, but she doubted his sincerity.
The herd had been troubling him, too. Cows were more than a livelihood to him, he really loved his herd, and the effect on them of what had happened that night had been devastating. The herd never stopped stampeding - panicking for no apparent reason, charging into electrified and barbed wire fencing over and over again. One cow had literally torn herself to pieces in her frenzy to escape from something unseen that had terrified her, and she later had to be destroyed. The rest of the herd had escaped into the farm next door – where Clinton worked - so often that Clinton's boss was beginning to lose patience with them. On top of all these problems the entire herd's milk yield was understandably way down. And how would Billy be able to explain it all? Easily - but who would believe him?
She watched from the porch as he and Clinton walked down to the paddock next to the milking sheds to feed the heifers. 'Something the matter, Dad?' Clinton knew his father well and he knew something was wrong. Billy normally relished the chance of having his eldest son to help him on the farm on his days off and talked non-stop before and after they started work.
But not on this morning. Billy just plodded along next to him, silent and with a frown on his face. He shrugged. 'No, nothing's wrong, Clint. Just got a quiet on, that's all...' He'd have liked to tell Clint what the matter was, but he knew it was better not to. He hadn't told Pauline what had happened since the cows had vanished that night. A couple of days later, he'd gone wn to the cowsheds in the morning to get the cows out graze and had found two of the cows locked together the same stall. He'd been amazed, for what had happened was impossible. He'd fastidiously checked the herd one o'clock that morning, before going to bed, and was absolutely certain that each calving cow was comfortably properly in its stall. There was never any likelihood who being put in the same stall in any case. Such a mistake just couldn't be made - apart from anything else, the cows in question would kick up too much of a fuss to let it happen.
Yet it had happened. He knew he hadn't put them there and he knew nobody else had been down there, so how had it happened? The unanswerable question kept nagging his brain and the answer was always the same. Who, or whatever, had transported the entire herd from one farm to another on that first occasion, must have somehow - and for some reason transported one cow from one stall to another. Maybe, he had pondered, they had moved the cow somewhere else and brought it back to the wrong place? - His thoughts on the subject had ended there, so bizarre were they becoming.
He and Clint rounded the corner at the end of the drive entered the sheds. Billy instructed Clinton to herd the heifers into the enclosed paddock opposite, while he went to check that there was enough hay for their feed. By the time he had returned with a few extra bales of hay, Clint had herded all the heifers out and securely chained and pad-locked the high gates. They both heaved the bales of hay over the top and the moment the feed hit the ground, the hungry animals were on to it.
'Right, next the milking,' Billy muttered, beckoning Clinton towards the little room adjoining the cowsheds opposite, where the milking machines were housed. They walked the six paces to the room and Billy flicked the switch to start the machines. As he did so, he felt Clinton - who was standing behind him in the doorway - grab his arm violently.
'Dad, Dad... my God, look... what happened?' He felt himself tense up, and dared hardly turn and look. Clinton was pointing to the paddock in front of them, into which they had just herded the cattle. It was empty, the bales of hay still on the ground, half eaten. Billy glanced across at Clinton. The boy's mouth was hanging open, his hand still pointing in the direction of the paddock.
'But we just put them in there, sixteen of them ... we did, didn't we? ... Just now? ... I don't understand, what happened to them? ... Dad?' There was a note of panic in his voice now. He turned and looked at his father. 'Dad? You... you don't look surprised, not really...' Billy sighed and clenched his fists, trying to compose himself, to stop himself trembling. 'Clint, I'm not really surprised. I've been half expecti
ng something like this to happen again...'
'Again? It's happened before?' Billy explained everything. Clinton starting to shake his head in disbelief, but then obviously remembered what he'd just experienced for himself and nodded in recognition of what he was being told.
'I believe it, Dad. I don't understand it, but I believe it, after what just happened. Where have they gone though?' How do we get them back?' Billy prodded him out of the room.
'Search me, Clint,' he sighed, 'we'd better just start looking....' The words were no sooner out of his mouth, and the pair them
out of the machine room, when Clinton grabbed his arm again
and pointed to the enclosed paddock across yard, opposite the open paddock they had just put the heifers into. All sixteen heifers were there, milling around, looking agitated. The gates to that paddock were still chained and padlocked as they had always been - as were the gates of paddock they had just left. Billy and Clinton just stood there, for what seemed like eternity, in complete silence, studying the scene that confronted them and trying to comprehend the impossible. Clinton eventually spoke, slowly and in a half whisper. But why, Dad? Why is this happening? What does it mean?'
Billy shook his head. 'Don't ask me, Clint, I'm as baffled as you are,' he told him. 'It doesn't make any sense to me, either. How could it? And don't ask me what I'm going to do about it, because I don't know. What can any of us do? We're obviously at the mercy of whoever, or whatever is doing to us...'