Grape Juice and Dead Bulles
by Lauren Everett
“Maybe it’s the Chupacabra.”
The limp, ruffled form of a fully grown bull lay between two men with their hands poised on their hips, hats tipped back above their foreheads.
“There is no way, Jack. Lookie here.” At this, the one man yanks up the one of the bull’s legs to expose its underside.
“It’s balls are missing?” Jack lifts his hat to scratch his head with his mouth forming a small grin in spite of the situation.
The other man kneels down and explains half-heartedly, “There’s a lot more missing here than just balls. It doesn’t look like a bear or wolf either. Check out these cuts.”
Jack joins him on the dusty ground, his heels grinding into the rocky earth with a soft crunch. Flies bounced against the pink flesh puckered around sharp, clean cuts surrounding exposed muscle.
“Almost looks like it was done with a knife. Who would do something like this?” Both of them pause while staring at the bull’s lack of manhood, or rather “cowhood.” Under any other situation, staring this long at a bull’s underside would be uncomfortable for the two country men. The habit of avoiding of eye contact during the occasional cow fucking brought a similar air of awkwardness. Yet, there was something sobering in the butchered bull’s splayed limbs and arched neck that stilled any human bashfulness to the natural world.
The silence is broken with a sharp sigh, “There’s something else missing too.”
Jack rubs his jaw in thought, “What else could possibly be taken, Frank? I don’t see much else.”
Frank shuffled over to the head of the bull, leaning its head on his bent knees. He mechanically placed his hands on either side of its pale lips, pulling forcefully in order to expose the inside of its mouth. A stench poured from the yawning hole as if it was expelling its last breath layered with a concoction of grass and bile. Where there should have been a tongue was only a dark stump at the back of the throat.
“Jesus, Frank. The tongue was cut out?”
He nods slowly while placing the head back on the ground gently.
“It’s the second one this week. Some of the farm hands claim there’s coyotes in the area, but this just doesn’t add up.”
He kicks at the dust with his steel-toed boot. “There isn’t even any blood. How can there not be any blood? There’s nothing. Nothing.”
Jack folds his arms, trying to find something comforting to say, but he’s interrupted by a small voice from behind them.
“Daddy?”
Frank spins around, shock and anxiety twisting his face into a grimace.
“Ollie. Kiddo, go back inside. I’ll be there soon to start breakfast.”
As he speaks, he turns the small child towards the house while blocking the view of the stiffened bull.
“But Daddy, I wanted to see—”
“No. Do as I say and go back inside.”
The tone in his voice makes Ollie give in to Frank’s nudges and he sulks back up to the house.
When he’s gone, Jack raises an eyebrow.
“I thought you were gonna let the kid see the reality of farm life. He’ll turn ten in the fall, he should know about this kind of stuff.”
Frank spits on the ground, a dark spot on the sandy colored dirt.
“He shouldn’t see this. This isn’t natural. This is a butchering with no natural purpose, Jack.”
Jack holds up his hands defensively, “Geez, I get it. I won’t tell you how to raise your child.”
“Sounds like you are.”
Both fall silent, eyes dropping to the bull.
“I’ll visit the Sheriff today. Ask him if he knows anything about this.”
“Thanks, Jack.”
The dull drone of bugs with the occasional song of crickets fills the summer night outside the McCleary farmhouse. A warm breeze slithers through the screened window in the dining room, ruffling Ollie’s hair as he picks at some green beans on his plate. His parents chatter on about farm business: the progress on a new silo, looking for a new farmhand, changing the seed brand for the chickens. He always tunes them out when they talk about boring stuff. However, when they fall silent, he looks up to find his father peering at him through his thin framed classes.
“How was school, buddy?”
“Fine.”
His mother, Anne, tucks a thin strand of dirty blond hair behind her ear, her freckled face wrinkling into a grin.
“Aren’t you going to tell your father your grade on your science test?”
Ollie rolls a pea beneath his fork before smooshing it. The bright green skin gives way to clear liquid and seed bits. He promptly scoops it onto his fork and into his mouth before addressing the question.
“I got an A minus.”
“Wow, that’s much better than the last test. I guess the tutoring has paid off.”
As Frank scoops another helping of mash potatoes onto his plate, his elbow knocks over his glass of grape juice.
“Aw, shit.”
“Frank!” His mother gives Frank a sharp look before jumping up to grab a wet towel from the kitchen.
The dark liquid seeps into the blue checkered tablecloth, spreading slowly towards Ollie’s plate. He can’t help but be reminded of the dead bull he saw this morning and how its ridged body stood out against the pale grass and brown dust like a misshapen rock.
“Dad?”
Frank pauses in his mission to move the plates from the spill.
“Why wasn’t there any blood?”
His father’s face changes from open curiosity to defensive agitation as soon as the question leaves Ollie’s lips.
“How much did you see?”
Ollie regrets even asking the question after seeing his father’s reaction, but his morbid curiosity pushes him on.
“I saw it from my window. This one died the same way the other one did, didn’t it?”
His father sighs, and with it all the tension leaves his face, replacing it with weariness.
“I don’t know, Ollie. How about you go to bed early, kiddo. Your mom and I need some time to talk.”
Without another word, Ollie makes his way to his room, still thinking about spilt grape juice and dead bulls.
Shadows creep on the floor as the moon rises high in the sky to shine its face into Ollie’s room. Though Ollie crawled into bed hours ago, sleep never came for him. He was about to toss over to his other side in hopes that hiding his face from the window would make him sleepier but a sound interrupts him. A low prolonged bellow. Curious now, Ollie slides his feet to the cool wood of his floor, crouching while he sneaks up to his window. His eyes adjust to the long shadows near the tree line not too far from the house. Ollie didn’t notice it before, but after squinting for a few seconds, he sees two shadows moving in the darkness striped by moonlight.
The bellowing noise sounds more like a whine now, resonating out from the lumpy form upon the ground. A taller figure is bending over it while its arms are moving rhythmically, like a sawing motion.
Ollie feels his breath get caught in his throat and a cold shiver goes down his body.
What is that?
The movement from the figure stops, frozen, as if it knew it was being watched now. They both stood staring at each other for a few moments when suddenly a low mooing sound came from the dark figure. The sound makes Ollie jump and move away from the window, his breath coming and going in bursts. The sudden desire for safety made him dive onto his bed and pull the covers over his head, hoping the figure couldn’t climb in through his window.
The window. It’s open.
He flings off the blankets in time to see that shadow looming outside, fingers slinking into the open crack. Thinking it was already too late, Ollie makes a last attempt to hide, burrowing himself deeper into his blankets. He waits for the footsteps, for that hand to tear away his only protection, for him to scream and kick and run.
But it never came.
After staying completely still for what felt like an hour, he slowly moves the blanket away from his face. Though he notices the window was open a crack wider than it was before, there is only eerie moonlight streaming in—all completely still.
It was gone.