♞

“How could someone, anyone, do such a thing?” said Bast more to herself than to anyone else, wiping traces of vomit from her lower lip. “I mean, look at this child. Sweet and innocent. Hardly old enough to colour ‘inside the lines’, and he is dead, and there is not one skerrick of blood anywhere.”

Having finished looking through one of the sheds, Cat slowly wandered back to the two girls, handing first Maude, and then Bast, a shovel.

“I think the best place to put them is behind the cottage beneath the oak.” stated Cat. “We will bury them together in the same hole, a family should rest together.”

“Ok, I will cut down the mother now then. I can’t say I entirely blame her for taking the noose and departing this life. Not after having her entire family slaughtered at least.” said Bast eyeing the shovel in her hand. “I thought the days of digging graves were long behind me.”

With that, Maude gently lifted the wee lad from the ground beside the gate, staring into the pit where his eye had once been. Rigor Mortis had set in, freezing him into his fallen, tangled position. It was not an easy task carrying him.

An hour later, a large hole about a metre deep, containing the bodies of an entire family, was slowly being refilled.

“So, what now?” said Maude looking at Bast.

“I think we should burn the house and the sheds, this no longer being a place for the living. And while we are doing that, I’ll get Sardine to herd the cattle, and drive them to a neighbouring farm. Poor things desperately need milking. Then, we go back to the pub, and work out a better plan than the one we just failed at.”

They did. Sardine trotted along behind the black and white dairy cattle, smoke and flame from the cottage and outbuildings rose slowly into the windless evening. A large stone stood proudly upon the pile of fresh dirt covering the dead.

“I hate burying people, and not knowing what name to mark their grave with.” and then, “I need to talk to Death.” was all that Bast said as they slowly drove away in the battered little Volkswagen. Stopping a short way off, letting the black and white cat Sardine into the car, cattle now delivered.

Black Annis smiled unseen from beneath Sardines hedge hiding place of yesterday, happy in the knowledge that she could now easily recognise her pursuers.

 

Click the picture.

 

N.

www.facebook.com/tbmonstershere/

twitter.com/be_monsters

editor@therebemonstershere.com

text only – (+61) 0418393742

All posts and associated intellectual properties regards ‘therebemonstershere.com’ remain ©The World Turned Upside.