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Small Town Monsters

5

whole. Buren was harmless and kind in his own way. A twisted part of Kurt actually liked answering the rancher’s calls.

“Happened out on the west forty,” Buren said. Buren carried a slight body with spindly legs and whip-like arms. He always wore the same battered cowboy hat, a mangled Stetson with dark sweat-stains around its brim. Most of his teeth were gone, rotted out and long since pulled. Buren could afford to get his teeth fixed, but who was he trying to impress?

Kurt looked in the rearview mirror at Clay, who sat in the back seat with a snide grin on his face. Kurt shot him a reproachful stare and looked back out the windshield.

The Blazer cut across Buren’s rough property. With no roads, the four-wheel drive bounded through ruts and holes, bouncing and splashing through mud puddles. Buren had a nice spread—over twenty-one-hundred acres. He kept nearly three-thousand head of sheep. For a recluse, he made a nice living.

“There,” Buren said, pointing at a copse of evergreen trees to the far right of the Blazer. Kurt turned the wheel and the Blazer bounded toward where Buren pointed. “I think we got something big on our hands,” Buren said, a deep sense of concern in his voice. “Something bigger than us humans, that’s sure.”

As the Blazer rounded the trees, Kurt spotted the reason Buren had called; Easily 20 head of sheep lay mangled across the ground in discarded heaps, their bones broken, much of the meat torn from their carcasses.

“What the hell?” Clay asked, sitting up and gawking out the window from the back seat, all levity leaving his expression as he overlooked the carnage.

“Something big,” Buren said. “Park over there.” He pointed to a flat plane of ground. “Hope you didn’t wear your good shoes.” Buren said.

Kurt parked the Blazer and the three men got out. The smell of decomposing flesh hit Kurt hard. He took a white handkerchief from his pocket and covered his mouth and nose. Clay followed suit.