"Red"
Early morning, the late night mist still hung in the air, a child walks out to start the morning chores. Walking sleepily over to the chicken coop, still rubbing the sleep from their eyes. They reached the container of chicken feed, filling an old bucket to take with them. They entered the coop and started spreading the feed about, as they were about halfway done, they felt that something was off. They didn’t notice at first since it’s the same, always the same routine every morning. But this morning was different, as they turned around they noticed that not one of the chickens was out of their stalls. "Here chick chick chick." They called as they slowly made their way to one of the stalls. Opening one of the hatches, they peered inside, squinting their eyes to see in the dark. As their eyes adjusted, their mouth fell open and began to scream and ran back out.
As they came back with their father, what they showed him shocked them to their core. Each and every single chicken was laying lifeless on the ground, withered looking. The father looked closer, picking one of them up, and he noticed there were two large holes on the neck. Holding the chicken in his hands, he can feel a weight difference, “This is supposed to be a 5-pound chicken but is almost nothing.” he said.
The father stands and looks out to the rest of the coop. He notices something on the floor and shines his flashlight on the ground. Seeing a blood trail, he tracks it to a hole in the chicken wire. He walks over to the hole and sees that the trail continues off into the fields. The father looks at his child with a dreadful expression on his face, “Get back to the house and start boarding everything up.” The child tried to respond, questioning their father's command, but the father didn’t even give them a chance. With one look the child knew that there was no questioning him. The child ran back to the house as the father turned to look over his farm, trying desperately to prepare himself mentally and emotionally for what was about to happen, as the sun slowly started to rise. Off in the distance in the fields the tall grass starts to shift.
***
Later as the sun started to set, casting a reddish glow across the farm. The child peeked through a crack in one of the boards, covering the windows. Peering through, they see their father sitting outside waiting for the darkness to fall. They can see he has his shotgun leaning against the chair and a revolver hanging on his belt. Their father watches the fields with such concentration that they have never seen before.
As the sky grows ever darker, the tall grass starts to rustle. The father sits up in his chair, grabbing his two barrel shotgun. He readies the butt of the gun to his shoulder, taking a high ready position. He slowly gets up, aiming towards the field. Stepping closer he hoovers his finger over the trigger. As he nears the edge of the field, he stops looking slowly from his right and left, checking before eventually stepping in.
The child peering through the crack sees their father being enveloped by the tall grass. Wide-eyed the child strains their ears trying to hear anything that would give them any clue of what's going on. A moment later a flash and a load bang rang through the field. The child out of instinct ran out of the house towards where their father was. Running into the field desperately looking for their father, as they were running they tried over the shotgun. They picked it up, trying to heave it up to their shoulder. After they mustered the strength to finally lift the gun, the field fell silent. Slowly turning around, they heard in the distance six consecutive bangs. Jumping from the sound, the child's nerves became ever so much more on edge. Just then they hear rustling just off to the side of them, it grows louder, and starts to grow closer and faster. Without thinking the child turns whips around pointing the shotgun in the direction of the noise and pulls the trigger, a loud thud could be heard hitting the ground. The force of the blast knocked the child down, the fall knocked all the wind out of the lungs. Wrenching for air, the child gets up walking towards where they shot the creature. Walking slowly, moving the tall grass out of the way, picking up the shotgun along the way. What they found immediately filled them with dread, what they found was no creature but their father. The child looks at their father's bloody body on the ground, eyes filling with tears and mouth agape. Their father tried to say something but all that came out was a blood filled gurgle.
Stumbling back, tripping over their own feet trying to get away from what had just happened. As the child tries to kick away at the ground, they hear a rustling coming in front of them. They reach for the shotgun, fumbling with the weapon. Then the rustling was coming from the side of them. It seemed as if it was coming from all around. Still fumbling and kicking backwards, the child's back hit up against a rock. Raising the shotgun up preparing for the creature, the field went quiet. All could be heard was the heavy breathing of the child, then a low growl could be heard right next to their ear. Too terrified to move their head, they could see out of the corner of their eye, the creature's giant red eyes, its short snout with its wet nose sniffing the air. It's leathery skin, almost looking like a reptile with spines jotting out from the top of its head. But the most terrifying feature the child could see and couldn't stop staring at was the two giant fangs in its mouth. The slowly brings up the shotgun, the creature's growl grows louder the higher the gun gets.
The sun completely dipped down below the horizon, the light from the full illuminating the field. And all that could be heard was a cry and a single click.
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