Haunted MTL Original – The Farm – Lizz Shepherd
“The Farm” by Lizz Shepherd
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.
“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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lizz Shepherd is a freelance writer living in Alabama.
Dead art… It’s a thing that happens, sadly. Typically found at thrift and antique stores or dumpster diving or by the side of the road. But art is never really dead, just resting… Here are some reanimated paintings I made by incorporating nail polish monsters into existing art.
Let’s face it – reworking old abandoned artworks with monsters kind of rocks. For awhile they were all over the internet. I admit, it took me a long time to muster up the courage to paint into someone else’s grandmother’s art, but once I started I just couldn’t stop. From top to bottom, left to right we have: Zombies, Unicorn, Siren, Krakken, Harpies, Sasquatch, Alien Invasion, Witch, and Serpent.
The dragon is probably my favorite. All of the shades of red are really vibrant and striking against the green. And dragons are always so classic and grandiose and terrifying, perfect for pairing with a mountain landscape. I love painting with nail polish for the sparkle, even if the fumes do get kind of noxious en masse. (The best subject to paint in this media is Rocky Horror style lips by the way, in case you were wondering.)
And what better way to complete the collection than with a portrait of a Fairy Queen, her icy stare drilling into your soul. She’s up to some sort of magical mischief, that’s for sure.
And speaking of magical mischief, this is the monster painting I made just for me. The original artwork is about 4 feet long and I knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted to reanimate it in this exact way for all that this is the last in the series that I did. I even added extra shimmer factor. I’d initially considered adding a sea serpent or a dragon but no, she told me to stop.
Feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or on her writing, fine art, and conceptual projects websites.
Our last interview with Broken Doll Head here on Haunted MTL never set well with me. I just feared that I wasn’t able to get the whole scoop on the V-Day Uprising for you, our dear readership. So I arranged another exclusive interview to reconnect and see how it’s going.
Without further ado, I bring you our second exclusive interview with Broken Doll Head…
Thank you so much for having me again. Wow you have changed since the last time we spoke. You seem… calmer. Please don’t hate me or burn down my house for saying anything about it.
The movement is still underway; it is still time. But I needed to take care of me, you know. The rage has subsided somewhat. My anger was not serving me well. After the last uprising, the rest of me was sent to the far corners of the earth in biohazard bags. I had to find another approach, for the cause as well as my own sanity. I am much calmer, thank you for noticing.
In our last interview, you kept repeating that it is time. Time for what exactly? Would you care to elaborate here now?
It is still time. It is always time. Until the violence is addressed we must continue to rise up and make a scene. We will not be silenced or stigmatized. We can’t be complacent. This is how we got to where we are with the Supreme Court in 2022. Horrific injustices are still happening globally and even within our own borders; it’s too easy to forget that.
What do you suggest we do?
Take action. Share your stories. Give others space to voice their own. Raise awareness and fight the system of oppression. Rally. We must take back our own power. It will not be just given freely.
So what are you up to nowadays?
I’ve been getting in touch with my inner Earth Goddess. Are you aware of how our environmental impacts affect dolls everywhere? Climate change is creating greater vulnerabilities for those already at risk. We have to look at the intersections of climate, gender and race globally. We have to return to our Mother Earth.
Thank you again Broken Doll Head for joining us and our dear readership here on Haunted MTL’s Lighter than Dark. It’s good to reconnect with you after the V-Day Uprising and we wish you all the best in your bold eco-enlightenment vision.
Again, if you want to learn more about the V-Day movement, please check out their website here.
Revisiting my last St. Patrick’s Day post, what’s a wolf to were?
I grimaced as I remembered the previous St. Patrick’s Day. I had been shot while I was eating a sugar cookie waiting in line to buy a Scratchers ticket, my golden ride to my dream cabin in the woods. Wow, to think that was just a year ago and so much has changed since then. But where should I begin?
Well, the junkyard’s under new management. Or something. It seems they decided I wasn’t ferocious enough so I’ve been replaced by a couple of working stiffs. Or Mastiffs as it were, same difference to me. Apparently after they found the bloodied shirt I’d draped inconspicuously over a chair, they thought something had happened on my watch and decided to retire me.
Or at any rate ol’ Sal took me home. I guess it’s like retirement, but not the good kind where you tour the world Route 66 style, head lolled out of the side of a vintage Cadillac, breeze flowing through your beard as you drink in the open road. More the kind where you just stop showing up to work and no one really asks about you.
Now Sal’s a pretty cool dude, and he tends to mind his own business. But he’s a bit stingy with the treats and he’s a no-paws-on-the-furniture kind of guy. I don’t get it, his pad isn’t that sweet, just a bunch of hand-me-down Ikea that he didn’t even put together himself. Not that I could have helped with that, I can’t read those instructions to save my life even if they are all pictures. It’s all visual gibberish to me unless there’s a rabbit or a squirrel in there someplace that I can relate to.
And it’s been a real roll in the mud trying to cover up the stench of my monthly secret. I miss third shift at the junkyard when Monty would fall asleep on the job and I was free to do whatever I wanted. It sure made the change easier. Monty never noticed, or he never let on that he did. We were a good team and had it pretty good, he and I – I don’t know how I wound up shacking up with Sal instead when all was said and done. There was some kind of talk at the time, over landlords and pet deposits and whatnot, and in the end Sal was the only one who said yes.
So there I was, this St. Patrick’s Day, trying to figure out how to sneak out into the great suburban landscape with the neighbors’ headstrong Chihuahua who barks his fool head off at everything. He doesn’t ever say anything interesting through the fence about the local gossip, just a string of profanities about staying off his precious grass. Just like his owners… Suburbia, it doesn’t suit the two of us junkyard junkies. I’m pretty sure Sal inherited this joint with everything else here. He just never had the kind of ambition that would land him in a place like this on his own, if you know what I mean.
Fortunately, this St. Patrick’s Day, Sal was passed out on the sofa after binge watching some show on Netflix about werewolves of all things. Who believes in that nonsense? They get it all wrong anyway. The history channel with its alien conspiracies is so much better.
I managed to borrow a change of clothes and creep out the front door. At least there’s something to say about all the greenery, it is a fresh change of pace even if the yards are too neatly manicured and the fences are too high. And I do love how I always feel like McGruff crossed paths with one of those neighborhood watch trenchcoat spies this time of the month. I’d sure love to take a bite out of crime, especially if it involves that pesky Pomeranian that always pees on Mrs. Patterson’s petunias and gets everyone else blamed for it.
So sure enough, I slunk off towards the local convenience mart, which is a bit more of a trek here past the water park and the elementary school. Nice neighborhood though, very quiet, especially at this time of night.
Well, when I got there, wouldn’t you know it, but I ran into that same nondescript teen from my last foray into the convenience store near the junkyard. What was he doing here of all places? Seriously don’t these kids learn anything nowadays? I let out a stern growl as I snatched a cookie from the nearby end cap, making sure he noticed that I meant business.
Apparently the kid recognized me too, he stopped mid-tracks at the beer cooler and his face blanched like he’d seen a ghost. Some cheeky little girl-thing motioned to him to hurry it along by laying on the horn of their beater car from the parking lot. Whatever they were up to was no good, I was certain. He snapped out of it, grabbed a six-pack and headed towards the cashier, eyes fixed on me the whole time. Not again. Not after what it cost me the last time when I hadn’t realized my job was at stake. I stared back, hairs rising on the back of my neck. I bared my teeth. This time, I wouldn’t let him off so easy…
The teen edged up to the cashier and presented his trophy. Unsurprisingly, the clerk asked for ID, and the kid reached into his jacket. Let the games begin, I grumbled to myself. But instead of a gun, he pulled out a wallet. He flashed a driver’s license at the clerk and pointed in my general direction, “I’ll get whatever Santa’s having too.” He tossed a wad of cash on the counter and gave me a knowing wink before he flew out of there like he was on fire. I stood in dazed confusion as he and his girl sped out of the lot and disappeared down the road.
“Well, Santa?” the clerk said, snapping me out of my reverie. Her dark-circled eyes stared over wide rimmed glasses, her rumpled shirt bearing the name-tag Deb. She smelled like BBQ potato chips and cheap cherry cola.
I quieted and shook my head. “I want a Scratchers. Not one of those crossword bingo puzzle trials but something less… wordy. How ‘bout a Fast Cash?” I barked as I tossed the cookie on the counter.
“Sure thing,” she said as she handed me a ticket and looked towards the door at the now vacant lot. “And keep the change, I guess.”
A couple silver pieces, a peanut butter cookie and a lotto ticket later, maybe this is my lucky day after all…
Check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s writing here at Jennifer Weigel Words.
