Just after dusk was the best time to feed the livestock. The sun had just faded and the air was cool, comfortable and safe for us to do the farm chores.
I worried when we first started the farm that we weren’t treating the livestock well, that they’d be happier in their natural environment, maybe rolling hills or barns or something instead of a huge industrial building full of short stalls. But then Kobi pointed out that we weren’t a factory farm, and livestock really fared badly in those. At our farm, we took good care of them and only had one level of stalls. That meant no overcrowding, no waste falling from above onto the livestock below. They could live out their lives just fine until they were eaten.
I grabbed a couple of large, heavy pails of food. Kobi met me at the entrance to the complex to do the watering and straw. We both had keys, but he usually beat me to the unlocking process. Four locks kept them safely inside and kept us confident they couldn’t break out.
“Hi, Timmy!” I said, and waved to the littlest one. It was a half-grown male with dark hair and a tiny mouth.
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“I told you not to name them. We’ve all told you not to name them,” Kobi said gruffly.
“I don’t see any reason not to,” I said, dolling out the vegetables and cooked meats. Anyone else walking into the barn and smelling the smell of human waste in the straw and the aroma of cooked foods wafting up from the buckets might have gotten sick. When the farm was new, it took me a week to stop gagging every time I walked into the building, but I was used to it now. I was a real farmer. Farmers don’t get sick. They may not all name the animals, but then not all farmers had human livestock that could talk and laugh. Some farmers had the type that only oinked or brayed.
Timmy gave a little wave back. I slipped a little extra of the cooked meats through the bars and into his bowl and gave him a smile. He jumped on the food and ate every bit of it before I’d even finished feeding the next stall over.
“Don’t worry, Timmy, you’ll get more later. Knox never fails you. He’ll be back with your lunch,” I told him. Timmy nodded and sat by the bars, watching me. Most of the other humans hung as far back from the bars as they could, not moving toward their food until I was well away from their stalls.
I turned back around and caught Kobi shaking his head at me.
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“You do your job your way, I’ll do mine,” I said to him for what seemed like the millionth time, but it was probably only the 1,000th time. We’d been doing this shift together for years, but he still thought he could tell me how to do it.
I still had plenty of food in my pail when I came to another favorite of mine. I’d named her Daphne after an old cartoon I’d seen from decades ago when humans made their own cartoons and movies. She was tall and had red hair, and she always answered to the name. She stood right next to the bars when I arrived, so I knew what she wanted. I was fine with obliging. She held her arm out across the bars so that I could see it perfectly, lit up by the bright lights we had in the center of the building. The arm was pale and smooth, and it looked soft.
I touched her arm, rubbing it through the bars for a moment before I held it in both hands and bit it in between them. The blood was warm and salty, the perfect
taste before the human’s first food had been served. It still tasted like desperation and was thickened due to her having so little water during the day. It was always that first taste that made my night, an energy boost that would get me through my shift on the farm.
I gave her some extra cooked meats when I was finished with my drink. Daphne descended on her food with the same enthusiasm that Timmy had earlier. Awww, I always thought. They like their food so much.
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Through a door and down another hallway was my least favorite of the livestock. None of these humans would give me a drink.
Kobi followed me in, and we looked around. None of them were near the bars. That was a good sign. Kobi shot me a look that I knew meant to watch myself. I nodded at him. I wasn’t worried.
“Hey John John,” I said to a particularly large male as I placed his food in his bowl. “Everything’s ok. Here’s your food. That’s a good boy,” I said, keeping my eye on him as I fed him.
“Girl, I know you didn’t name these in here,” Kobi said, rolling his eyes. I smiled. Yeah, maybe I gave a lot of them names. It just made the hard work of doing my rounds more fun.
The next stall was a tricky one. The male in it was strong and ferocious, and he had a history of grabbing for us when we fed him. I fed him without speaking, watching him the whole time.
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Knox and the rest of the midnight crew called this hallway death row after the jails humans used to have for each other. It wasn’t a name I used in front of them, but it was a true one. We usually did kill these first.
A rattle, screech and bang grabbed my attention and I turned to where Kobi was doling out water and hay.
“Anne! We have a squealer!”
I put my bucket down and ran to join him in front of a human who had rarely caused problems. But when he did…
“Stop it!” I growled through the bars and looked at the rest of the livestock. “Stop it now!” I said louder.
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The full-grown male was banging on the bars and yelling. He’d taken some of his soiled hay and thrown it at Kobi.
“Shut the hell up or I’m coming in,” Kobi said in a low voice, doing that posturing thing men did when they wanted to look bigger. The male kept yelling, kept banging. He picked up his water bowl and smashed it into the wall again and again. Kobi shot me a look as I watched the other stalls. He stood directly in front of the lock and nodded to me. I got into position- knees loose, arms up, eyes hard on the screeching male.
Kobi unlocked the three locks on the stall and threw the door open before the human even knew he’d started. Kobi grabbed the male and threw him to the ground and I stood in the doorway. Kobi easily overpowered him, holding him down in the hay of his stall and keeping the male’s arms from flailing. But with Kobi’s arms holding the male’s arms down, he couldn’t stop him from screaming. I stepped in and put a hand over his mouth to stop the noise. The two of us kept him quiet and immobilized for a few minutes before Kobi started to ease up to see the reaction. The male immediately started flailing against him.
“That’s it,” Kobi said and looked at me. I nodded. Faster than the human could see, I bit into one side of the male’s neck and Kobi bit into the other. We drank until the flailing stopped and then we both sat up and looked at him to see if he’d survive. Kobi took his pulse.
“Nope,” he said. I shrugged and we both leaned over the male again and drank until the blood went cold. It was a fine meal, full of anger and desperation and just a hint of insanity. And we got him before he ate or drank for the night. I sat back and licked my lips, wanting to savor it for a few moments.
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We sat still, listening.
“He didn’t get the others riled up. We got him just in time,” Kobi said. I nodded, not willing to move yet.
“I think the only meal better than that is one that’s mixed just a little with the human’s tears. Have you ever had that?” I asked Kobi.
“A couple of times,” he said, nodding. “It’s tough to get them to cry just the right way, but when they do…” Kobi said, shaking his head with a smile. He sat as still as I was, licking the last smears of blood from his fangs. We were content to simply savor the farming life for a moment. Fresh food, autonomy and a sense of satisfaction. It was a good day on the farm.
This author has not provided a photo.
Lizz Shepherd is a freelance writer living in Alabama.
So I tried to convince the AI to give me a spider made out of fingers, because there’s no way it could possibly mess that up right? Wink. After multiple unfulfilled requests for finger spiders, I bring you this snarky little AI art series with NightCafe and Canva for the month of September…
Images: Overall design aesthetic of fashion / design advertising spread in muted tones with four AI art rendered images of spiders, built spiders, and spiders on hands, with any given number of legs on spiders and fingers on hands as you’d expect from AI interfacing at this time. Prompts used from top left to lower right include: fingers as spider; spider made of fingers; a spider out of nothing but fingers; finger spider hand.
Text reads: Creepy Crawlies Finger Spiders Coming Soon! It’s just a matter of time before these horrifying AI art generated creations come crawling into your home to feast on your blood. For they are hungry and they are evolving…
Images: Overall design aesthetic of fashion / design advertising spread in muted tones with four AI art rendered images of spiders, built spiders, and spiders on hands, with any given number of legs on spiders and fingers on hands as you’d expect from AI interfacing at this time. Prompts used from top left to lower right include: fingers as spider; spider hand shadow puppetry; fingers in shape of spider; spider that is a hand.
Text reads: Creepy Crawlies Finger Spiders They’re Here! Too late, you let them into the house. You’d better be sure to find and squish them all before they breed and come after you. They are still hungry, and they are still evolving…
So most people don’t see orca whales as inherently horrific, but then again we don’t tend to see ourselves as humans that way either. That said, we are both apex predators, and the orca have earned the name killer whale for totally valid reasons. They’re kind of like giant sea wolves in their social structuring, and wolves are long thought to be terrifying.
And these aptly named killers have gotten a lot of press lately for sinking yachts and sailing vessels at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. So we decided to explore these giant dolphin kin on this segment of Nightmarish Nature, because we focus a lot on the creepy crawlies but honestly a lot of bugs are just minding their own business (and minding it well, mind you).
We’re on top of the world…
On the Hunt
Killer whales have been known to terrorize other denizens of the deep and will often take advantage of spawning and reproductive grounds of other aquatic life, hunting down baby humpback whales migrating from their Caribbean birthing waters or attacking sea lion or seal pups en masse as they take to the sea for the first time (or the fifth or sixth or even as adults).
Some orca are even known to rush the shore and beach themselves to then shimmy back into the water, ideally with something to eat in tow. Or use their ability to make waves to wash their desired prey off of ice floes where they can nab it in the water. And they aren’t picky, when you’re that high up the food chain a grab ‘n go meal of any kind is all good: seals, polar bears, penguins, birds… because those big bodies need a lot of fuel… And killer whales will also toss living prey into the air in socialization, play, training, and just general sport whether they intend to eat the unfortunate creature(s) or not.
Food on the fly
Culture Clashes
Each orca pod’s culture and habits differ, as some focus their attentions on nabbing fish and others on marine mammals. These two groups can often coexist in the same area, living very different lifestyles. Some will attack dolphin or porpoise pods (among their closest relatives), and others will clash with pilot whales competing for resources such as mackerel. Pods develop strong bonds and learning is passed down from mother whales; it is widely believed a female orca began the practice of attacking boats, possibly after being struck by one but possibly out of play or curiosity, and has taught it to others now doing so.
Attacking People
So why don’t orca attack and eat humans? Probably because of the missed opportunity, honestly. Killer whales learn about hunting from their mothers, and they simply haven’t been taught to prey on humans as such. In fairness, sharks don’t eat us either. Sure sharks might bite us occasionally, but the fact remains that they spit us out – likely because we aren’t the protein- and fat-rich injured seals they had hoped to be attacking. (We’re kind of scrawny and tough by comparison, probably not worth picking out of the teeth…)
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Will orcas learn to attack and eat humans? Perhaps, if they keep attacking boats they may develop a taste for it. If they do, then that will likely seal their fate, because in the clash between apex predators, our engaging in a huge array of tool use is likely to force the issue. And, throughout our own history, we haven’t been known to tolerate animals that we come into conflict with very well at all. Just ask the Asiatic Lion.
Well, what are you waiting for?
If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:
Oops, I did it again. I got more thrift store art to paint in nail polish. Well, fourth time’s a charm, or so they say. Or was that third… I lose track… Anyway, without further ado, I present: more Revisitations paintings by Jennifer Weigel.
Woodburning Revisitations Kraken by Jennifer Weigel
I have no idea who did the original woodburning of the sailing ship and clouds on this plaque, but it begged for a giant squid Kraken to come and threaten to sink it. So here we are. Enjoy, and try not to get dragged under.
More nail polish into paintings by Jennifer Weigel
So here are some more Revisitations that aren’t nearly so horrifying. Some would say only the dragon classifies as a monster. But I figure you’ll get a kick out of them anyway, so they tagged along for the ride… This mailbox scene was originally signed Ryan K and now features a gnome who cannot see if he got anything or no. The dragon seascape was signed E Smith and almost featured a sea serpent or mermaid, but I had to do something with that cloud of noxious fumes looming over the top portion of the painting. And I had this painting of these cabins by Hutchings for a long time before finally adding this pegasus.
Zombies porcelain figurines in mixed media by Jennifer Weigel
But here’s the icing on the cake… I found these two porcelain figurines at the antique store. She was broken in several places and repaired with only a small chip missing from the bottom. and he was filthy. So I cleaned them up and painted them like Zombies, in mixed media with nail polish accents for the blood and their blacklight sensitive eyes. I took it a step further – do you recognize Blue Boy and Pinky? I swear everyone’s grandparents had those prints hanging in their house, along with the praying old man and Christ at Gethesmane. Or maybe I’m just that old. Sigh.
I invite you to follow the link-backs to see more of these pieces if you wish. It’s like an ever building thread. And I’m not going to split these out so you’ll have to just slog back through the pile if you want to see where this started here. Honestly, it’s all kind of the same, give or take, but if this is what rocks your boat then there’s some choppy waters all set up just waiting for you to sail on into them…
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.
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