The Gorging (2 page)

Trooper Anderson dropped his hand to his side, jerking his head a little as the smell made its way through his nose and into his lungs that had never been polluted with anything so horrible, not even a cigarette. “I don’t think these animals were poisoned,” he said. He could nearly taste the stench.

Sergeant Anderson and Miller stopped laughing. They stood there looking at the young trooper, waiting for him to continue on explaining his theory of how Miller is now screwed out of his farm animals and not because of some horrific act of vandalism.

“If they were poisoned, and this many died, we surely wouldn’t be able to stand here and see it. There would be too much poison lingering in the air for us to be able to even breathe without respirators. You have to think about how much poison would have been needed to do a job this big.” They leaned in closer to hear the rest of the trooper’s theory. “I mean, Mr. Miller, you have been here all day, and you’re still standing, half drunk, but still standing.”

“Hey boy. I ain’t drunk.” Miller took another drink. “At least not yet anyways.”

“Go on.” Sergeant Anderson waved his hand out, motioning for his nephew to spit the rest of the words out his mouth while they were standing there, breathing in massive pockets of air filled with the reek of chicken shit.

“There’s no way possible someone could bring in enough poison to kill off this many animals at one time. I think something very strange, almost supernatural has occurred here.” The young trooper spoke like a crazy professor in a comical science fiction movie. Sergeant Anderson wanted to laugh at his nephew’s analysis of the situation. He thought to himself that Jeffrey is probably making this shit up as he goes along about some crazy force field from outer space coming down and terrorizing the livestock. Taking some innocent and unsuspecting cattle up into their space ship for probing. That would seem logical wouldn’t it? That’s right, the Sergeant wanted to laugh, and he started to, until he thought about his own comments at a crash earlier that evening. How he made the conclusion there were no buzzards or mosquitos in the air, gnawing away at the fresh meat spread across Route 31.

Jeffrey went on with his story, “What if it’s something big, something that could be spreading across to other farms? This may not be the only farm to be attacked Mr. Miller. There could be others.” Jeffrey kept talking as he looked at his uncle, then to Miller.

All three men stood there a moment, still breathing in the smell, not even caring at this point. They were in complete silence, until Miller started laughing hysterically. He laughed so hard the troopers thought his heart would explode and he’d fall dead in the piles of chicken shit on the floor. That would be a shitty way to go. He stopped laughing and said, “Let’s get the hell out of this shit, boys.” He walked past the two troopers and out of the chicken coop. They quickly followed behind him. Trooper Anderson closed the door, wiping his fingers on his trousers out of fear there may have been crap on the latch. Miller led them to the front porch where they all took a seat on the chairs that were lined up near the front door.

“I don’t understand it. I can’t explain it, you know Carl.” Miller leaned forward with his hands hanging limp between his knees, the right one barely hanging on to the beer he was drinking. “I don’t understand why someone would want to do this to me. I mean. My ex-wife hadn’t been heard from in years. I don’t think she’d come back now to terrorize me. Do you?” Sergeant Anderson shook his head. He couldn’t give an explanation as to why Miller’s livestock is now dead and why his chickens laid lifeless inside the coop, or why his wife would consider terrorizing him in his old age. Carl always has an answer for everything, but he has no answer tonight. All he can do is sit there and stare off into the distance, thinking about all his years with the state police. He had never seen anything as odd and eerie as what he’d just seen out in the field.

Carl started to think that maybe his nephew is on to something. Maybe those science fiction movies that he watches aren’t just for entertainment. Maybe they’re some kind of subliminal messages being laid out for only those who can decipher it like some top secret and only those who
could
decipher it would be the ones to survive. That’s all dumb bullshit, Sergeant Anderson thought to himself. He’s a man of the law. An experienced man with an education doesn’t let these types of thoughts overpower his mind. Maybe his hotheaded nephew can think some strange space being is coming down and killing off a few cows, but Sergeant Anderson has a job to do. “I think we need to get our thoughts together here Miller and figure out who is responsible for poisoning your livestock—”

Trooper Anderson interrupted, “
If
it is poison.”

Without missing a beat, Sergeant Anderson continued, giving his nephew a look, letting him know he’ll receive a reprimand back at the station for being naive on the job. “It’ll take some investigation as you know, and I’ll take care of the initial part, but you know it’s gonna be turned over to Sheriff Johnson first thing tomorrow.” He leaned forward to make eye contact with Miller, who now seemed to be in a trance, thinking about his future as a farmer. “You heard me right?”

“Yeah—I heard ya.” Miller leaned back in his chair, finished up the last drops of his Kentucky Blue and tossed the can out on the front lawn. “A man can’t even have something for himself anymore these days.” Miller seemed more distant with an odd look to his face. It’s the look they seen many times before. The look of a man who’s got nothing left to lose and could go off the deep end at any given moment. And once he goes off that deep end, you can never tell who he’ll take with him, but you know one thing for sure. Whoever is going with him will never be coming back.

“That’s for sure,” said Sergeant Anderson as he leaned back in his chair and continued sipping at his beer. He was in no hurry to get back to the station. He’s sure that the paper work from the Route 31 crash is starting to pile up on his desk and he is no mood to tackle it tonight. He needs time to get his own thoughts together and clear his head of the crazy ideas and speculation as to why the night’s events had taken place. He doesn’t want anything to interfere with the technical jargon that he must use in his reports. Words like phenomenon, mystery, and unknown are not allowed in the reports, and so far tonight, those are the only words that actually give the best description for everything that had taken place over the course of the evening. Aside from his reports, there is nothing he can do at night and it’s too dark to investigate the cause of death of the livestock. He would have to call Animal Control and the Department of Agriculture to take care of this issue. The state police can only go so far until the government officials would take over, and this is no doubt a case for the government to look into. He hoped it wouldn’t be something that would spread across to other farms, and he knew the small towns surrounding the Miller farm would likely be contained for testing of some random spreading disease. Hopefully not mad cow disease, but how could they explain the flocks of dying birds, or even the lack of tiny flying insects that were no longer sucking at the skin on his bare flesh. Sergeant Anderson looked over at his nephew and thought about what his Jeffrey had said. He thought about how his nephew has grown up so much since he started helping his sister take care of Jeffrey when Jeffrey’s father left.

Jeffrey’s mother had raised him by herself since he was seven years old. Her husband decided it would be best for the family if he up and left in the middle of the night to avoid being a bad influence on his child. It could have helped Mrs. Anderson if she knew he was leaving so she could better prepare for his departure. Since that cold December night, some twenty years ago, she’s had to work various jobs, sometimes two or three at a time just to provide for her only son. Fortunately for her, her brother, Carl Anderson, was always there to help. Carl never had any children of his own. He never married either. He always spent his time putting in overtime with the state police since the day he joined up. He was lucky enough to be assigned duty in the same town he grew up in and was able to help his sister raise her small boy.

All the times Carl was off duty, he would go visit his nephew, teaching him things like how to shoot a gun, and how to change the oil in a car. That’s how little Jeffrey got hooked on fixing up old cars. Carl thought of Jeffrey as his own son, but knew that he wasn’t. Jeffrey always wanted to go hang out in the patrol car with his uncle every chance he got. There were times he would practically jump up and down in the passenger seat yelling, “Let’s pull that guy over, uncle Carl. He must have done something wrong.” Carl would just laugh and then turn to a serious tone and explain the confines of the law and how he couldn’t just pull people over without reasonable suspicion. Well, he could, but it wasn’t worth the chance of pulling over some psycho-crazy guy with a death wish. He would remind little Jeffrey that life is too important to get mixed up in other people’s problems. His job is to enforce the law, not get involved in people’s lives.

Of course, just once, Carl decided to pull somebody over with little Jeffrey in the car. He would never forget that day when he did and vowed that he would never do it again. Jeffrey had just sat there in the passenger seat while Carl grabbed his ticket book and proceeded to call in the plate number to check for any outstanding warrants. Just a safety measure the state police would take to estimate their chances of being shot by a motorist that may be at the end of his sanity. Jeffrey pointed his fingers above the dashboard, making like he was shooting pistols at the car in front of them.

“Put your hands down boy.” Carl had pushed Jeffrey’s hands down below the dash. “Don’t play games like that with the citizens. Our job is to show them respect. Not make fun of them for doing something stupid.” Carl got out of the car with his ticket book and proceeded to greet the driver after receiving a negative report on any outstanding warrants or traffic tickets. Jeffrey waited for his uncle to get past the front of the patrol car where he couldn’t see inside the car. He put his hands back up and made like guns again, making shooting noises at the same time. “Pow. Bang. Bang. Take that Mr. Lawbreaker.” It was all fun and games for Jeffrey, but it quickly changed at the sound of a real gun blast coming from the car parked in front of him. Jeffrey lowered his hands and looked up over the dash with his mouth hanging open, amazed and scared at the same time (if that’s possible) as he watched the out-of-state motorist spin the wheels of his car, throwing gravel up onto the hood of the patrol car as he sped off.

Fortunately for Trooper Carl Anderson, he ducked back the second he saw the driver bring the pistol above the door and stick it out the window. The bullet had whisked by his head. He could feel the wind of it as it went by. He had jumped up, ran back to the patrol car, and jumped inside. He had no choice, but to chase after the suspect with Jeffrey sitting in the car next to him. It was already against policy to have minors in the patrol cars, but Sergeant Kendrick didn’t mind. Sergeant Kendrick, a man already in his early sixties at this time, was as old school as they come. He had no worries about anybody riding in the car. He would always say, “If we let the bad people ride in back then we should let the good people ride in front.” Not the wisest advice coming from the man supposed to be in charge, but the state at that time rarely checked up on what the trooper stations were doing, especially in southern Kentucky. They were more worried about what went on up north in places such as Louisville and Lexington.

Carl managed to keep up with the crazy man that had just tried to take his head off with a six-shooter pistol. The day ended in a good way for Carl and Jeffrey when the suspect veered off the highway and into the center median, crashing and flipping his car, throwing him from it and into oncoming traffic. Justice served. Taxpayer money saved on another trial for the great citizens of Kentucky. Jeffrey was delighted about the entire experience and couldn’t wait to tell his mother about the whole thing. Carl had been quick to make Jeffrey change his mind about it. He didn’t need anyone lecturing him for taking a young boy on a wild police chase, endangering his life and cutting it short before he saw his eleventh birthday. Carl insisted it would be his and Jeffrey’s little secret. Not a bad secret, just one that his mother’s nerves would do just fine without knowing. Ever since that day Jeffrey knew in his heart that he was going to become a Kentucky State Police Officer just like his uncle Carl.

Trooper Anderson looked over at his uncle, who seemed like he was staring off into space on the front porch of the Miller farmhouse. He had seen that look in his uncle’s eyes before. It was the look of a man that desperately wanted the truth and would do just about anything to get it. Miller seemed to have that same look. He thought that maybe his uncle was getting to the point of having seen enough of the carnage and the crazy stupid shit that comes along with the job, at least for one night. His uncle is only in his early 50s, but he has seen a lot in his time with the troopers. Murders, suicides, freak-accidents, and highway shootings. He had seen it all. Jeffrey figured it would be best to pull his uncle out of the so they could get back to the station and call it a day. “You ready, Sarge?” Jeffrey is far beyond ready to leave.

Sergeant Anderson shook his head, gathering his thoughts, and bringing himself back to the present. He looked around to remind himself of his location and then looked at Jeffrey. He had a rather sad look to his face. “Yeah. Let’s get going.” He stood up and tossed his beer can into the pile of other empties lying in front of the house. A pile that could bring at least ten or twenty dollars if recycled. Before stepping down from the porch, Carl turned to Miller and said, “I’ll get ahold of Sheriff Johnson and have him give you a call first thing in the morning.”