It was the Animals & Insects
By Darren Barker
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Published on Smashwords
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It was the Animals & Insects
Copyright © 2012 Darren Barker
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It was the chickens
It is a usual day at the farm. Boring and muddy and very much like the wife, miserable. I was out early getting the bloody animals fed, in the barn getting all the food necessary to feed all the livestock, when I hear a car pulling up then another, dropping of the temporary hired help during this part of the season. We have a yearly deal to use local college children.
“Hello old chap we are here to get your apples in” said the first one through the barn door.
I look at him and think smart arse, in your fancy clothes come to do a few weeks work have ya, so I start as I mean to go on so they know how it will be.
“I’m not your old chap, that is what’s between your legs, although if I would say the correct title then that should be little old man”.
There are some giggles from behind him. The cars are driving off as the rich mummies and daddies have dropped off their delicate sons and daughters.
I carry on in my usual manner “it’s as near as what’s between your ears probably as well, most of you use that more than your brains anyways.”
“Here you get paid for what you do not the hour, so bloody well work hard to get paid, and yes your nail polish will get scratched, and you will get dirty”
I struggle not to grin at my thoughts about how they will cry like babies at the dirty hands, when they get home each night. My next question is.
“So how many ya school sent me then eh”
Same boy answers, “Fourteen of us all willing workers.”
Hmm I’m thinking, “Look a bit skinny and weak to me, time will tell if you are hard workers or not, some of ya will also have to help out with other chores as your teacher would have told ya, as I have to take the tractor out to move the apple and pear crates if you lot pick ‘em’. So you’ll have to take it in turns to feed my poultry, the sheep and cows have been fed for the day, I hope that’s ok for ya, if it’s not then bugger of home to mummy, now.”
One of the girls then spoke up. “Our school says we get food and toilet facilities here also, before we get picked up as we are here throughout our dinner time.”
I turn to her and scowl, “shit, yeah love you’ll get fed, me woman indoors will call ya when times right, you might actually get some weight on ya, with proper home cooked grub inside ya, if you work hard enough you will be hungry enough, I just hope your strong enough.”
Just then the wife walks into the barn, she heard the cars dropping of the little darlings, I turn to her and point to her, and say “That’s my woman.” then I look back at the children. Couldn’t of given rats arse for all I cared spoilt brats is all they are.
“There she be, me woman from indoors she’ll now tell ya’s where you need to take a pee and dump, and where she feed ya’s, they are all yours get em moving now”
The wife was quick to reply. “Shush old man you’ll scare em off you grumpy git. Now the toilet is at the side of the house and the dinner will be served at one sharp, it will always be a good hot meal and plenty to drink of water and squash.”
With that I comment back, just under my breath but they all hear it.
“Bloody spoilt little brats letting em use our bog, why can’t they pee behind a tree like what I do when I’m working huh, worse that we have to feed them and pay them they better work bloody hard or ill skin em alive.”
Wifey says. “Hush you stupid old fool they can hear you.”
“I don’t care, get em to work or send the shits home, I’ll do it as I have to do everything else anyways.”
“Stupid miserable old git, now you can see why we didn’t have kids huh.” was the wife’s come back at him, but I wasn’t gonna let her get away with that.
“Didn’t want em in case they ended up like you”, as I walk to the tractor and start her up.
She quickly pushes the boys and girls out of the barn, and tells which to go were and shows them the feeds and then were to get to the apple orchards and the pears orchards. She has it all written down for them as always, she was well prepared, she got their names and worked out a rota for them on feeding and picking, so all did a bit of each. At that point I reverse out the tractor and head on up the fields to set up for little darlings.
I go about my business; I get into the orchard and start to move the huge crates around ready for the fruit. The children are in sight now with their little trays for picking, I hope how the wife showed them so each apple will still have a stalk attached. As I am busy doing the orchard the first young girl is going to feed the poultry, she will do the turkeys first then the huge hen house. That will be fun for her they are always hungry little beggars.
The young girl has entered the poultry runs and has placed all the seed for the turkeys, so now it’s into the hen house. Which as my farm is free range, they are all loose in a huge barn like building. She gets her bucket full and enters the building, the noise as she enters makes her jump, the hens all know she has food, so they are excited, she empties the bucket in the nearest feeder troth then goes out to replenish, she didn’t read her list as it states to do the furthest first and work her way back, so in she goes again to the next one then gets another bucket full to do the next one, one more time and its finished, its at the far end, I don’t think she knew how heavy buckets of seed can be when carrying so far. As she has slowed down due to tiredness.
On the return this time with her full bucket, she noticed something very odd. It was all the hens, who are extremely excited since she arrived with their food, have in fact, not gone near it. She was thinking that it’s because she was inside, and when she leaves they will all feed happily. As she is approaching the end of the room, she looked around and the chickens were all following her which she thought was cute. She emptied the seed into the trough. And placed the bucket down to even out the seed for all to reach, when suddenly hundreds of chickens attacked her not the seed, for a few seconds she was able to push some away but there huge numbers outweighed her abilities to move. She is screaming out loud but to no avail, no one is in range to hear her.
“Help me”
“Help”
“Help”
She was all alone and helpless as hundreds of chickens are now eating away at her, they are even fighting each other to get to her; the larger females have the pecking order and are at her head and face. They are pecking out her eyes as she carry’s on screaming out, then as the darkness comes to her and the terrible pain, as she is eaten alive, the hens are relentless they are going for her brain as that’s what they all kill for, but these hens are also carnivorous and will eat the entire girl, and with so many hens it won’t take long, they have pecked away her hairline on her head and the skin has been gone for a couple of minutes now its just tissue left, she is just still alive but not for long now as the hens are talking her skin of the bones on her arms, her face everywhere only the strongest hens will get this brain this time. The blood is digested at the same time as her flesh it’s like watching a load of piranha fish in an eating frenzy but with chickens they are pecking at each other in their confused hungry state. As the main hens are in at the brain now and filling themselves with its juices. The life has now drained away. She has passed on and soon will be gone forever.
Up at the orchards I’m happy the young whipper snappers are doing ok, they are getting in the fruit at a good rate, we might just get them all in on time to be shipped, I can’t afford to miss the shipment or I will lose the farm or very close to losing it. I look at my watch and shout to them.
“Back to the farm house you little beggars time to eat my food”
Well at the speed they are running I hope there will be some left over for me, when I get back, they all have washed their hands and are in the house eating the food my wife has prepared, one of the girls says.
“Amy has not come in yet.”
Wife shouts to me to go and look for her while they carry on eating. I walk over and into the poultry part, I can see all the food has been placed with the turkeys as they are happily eating, so I walk to the hen house door, as I peer in, the troths are full and the chickens content, I look but there is no one in here. At the end underneath all the trodden sawdust is all that remains of Amy her bones picked clean, and her boots and clothes shredded as the hens pecked through them so they were only tiny fragments and not visible unless you were right on top of them. I trudge back to the farm I am hungry.
“She’s not there bloody girl.” As I walk in and sit down to eat.
Wife says “must be in the orchards although she should off passed you lot on way down any of you see Amy.”
A reply was simple “No.”
“Well, she will come when she is hungry, I expect maybe as first visit to the farm she is exploring.” The wife said out loud.
“Huh, bloody being nosey more like.” I say spitting out bread as I’m talking whilst eating for speed to get back to work.
Then I say to the others “come on eat ya bloody grub will ya, we have to get a move on. We will find her soon enough if she is stupid enough to go wondering.” As I spit out my sandwich at the same time as saying it.
“Ok make sure you use the bog, then up to the orchards come on that’s enough.”
As we are all leaving the lad nearest to my wife says “Thank you it was very pleasant food and water. Two of the girls are going to have a quick look for Amy we will cover their work for them”
“Ok my love said the wife,” to the lad, she always was too soft.
I use the bog, and I hope that smells for the little buggers as they queue to use it, and I’m off back up to the orchards, grumbling to myself about the kids wondering around nosing were it don’t belong. I get to the orchard and get about my business. While I’m doing that two girls have started to wonder around looking for their mate Amy. The others have got to the orchards and are getting on with their job so all’s well, apart from missing nosey she better make up for it tomorrow or the school can swap me for a working one.
The two girls have entered the barns and found them to be empty and moving on to the poultry houses. One of them says.
“Typical of Amy to go walking off, it’s always about her, and we have to deal with the grumpy farmer while she is having fun” they giggle then walk past the turkeys as they comment.
“The smell is awful here”
“It’s the country, daddy always says”
“Give me a city any day, this is dirty”
They walk up to the hen house now; they first look into the doorway, from here its dark when you look in, so they know they have to enter the actual room. And they look down and they are thinking the same, they have Wellingtons on so it will be ok. They are now inside the large room that is the hen house, its huge but they decide to walk in to make sure she’s no sitting somewhere stoking a dirty chicken or similar, as they get half way they notice the chickens are paying them a lot of attention now, and some are moving closer, as the two girls walk forward huddled together one of them kicks out at the chickens to scare them off, then she does it again. Her friend says nothing about it and joins in kicking away to scare them off. Then one says.
“Look at the end troth it’s the feeding bucket, we were told to use when it would be our turn, over the next few days, that stupid farmer never saw that, when he said he looked for Amy did he”
They push their way through the hens that are now collecting around there feet, as they get to the bucket one of them says.
“So Amy got this far so where did she go from here then I can’t see any other way out can you.”
The other girl was not looking at other ways out she was too busy fighting of hens which have surrounded them. They both now are having to swot away the hens, as they are trying to jump up on them no longer just at their feet, then one of them leans on the other as she had lost her balance and knocks the girl to the floor, she looks down to go to help her friend, but the hens have smothered her she couldn’t see her friend anymore there were too many hens she screams out.
“Help us.”
“We’re in here please.”
As they were her last words also, as she couldn’t cope with their numbers, as the hens are pecking the skin of, as they both are trying just to breathe. As life is leaving them before it went black, the last sight either of them got was a hen pecking their eyeballs out from their sockets, The shear pain is too much to bear as death quickly follows, as the hens are hungry for their brain tissue and then there skin and organs, the more the hens get, the hungrier they become.
There are two squabbles going on with a couple of hens, one over an ear the other over an eye ball. Which was who’s we would never know, as the bodies are picked dry inside on a few minutes gone the same way as Amy now. These blood thirsty hens are happy for now and can go about their pecking at the floor, until the next opportunity comes along for a fresh meal.
Up in the orchard they have been working well, considering they were three less doing the work; it is now break time so I shout out.
“Ok time for a break go and get a drink now”