Cursed Souls Blood, Brains & Rock'n'roll

Chapter 19 A belated return

The wind walked across the field, bumping into the house now and then. It was a big old house. There was nothing more to add to that description. You can, of course, talk for a long time about how old this house is and how many things it has seen. But all this can be described in one phrase - the house was old, and it has seen a lot of things. Such a characterization is the most complete and concise description of this house. In fact, of all houses that were old and had seen a lot.

Although the house was old, it doesn't mean that it was not well maintained and falling apart. It had been properly painted, the shutters had been replaced or repaired, and the boards on the porch had never creaked. From the looks of it, you couldn't tell that the house had ever seen anything.

The house was surrounded by a couple of barns and a few small sheds, from which came a contented clucking sound and which were inexhaustible sources of a very unpleasant odor. This odor proudly announced to the world that the digestive and gaseous systems of the animals that lived in these barns were all right. Not far from the house, in the pasture, the cows lazily strolled by. Sometimes they didn't deny themselves the pleasure of standing there with a thoughtful expression on their faces, which didn't look much different from an unthoughtful one.

This little oasis in the middle of the green desert looked like a small family farm. Thanks to the pervasive great progress, which brings to mankind an exceptionally bright future, such farms should be put in the Red List and protected from the encroachment of various shopping centers that would like to expand their parking lots.

The owner of all these lands was trying to solve a dilemma with one very stubborn calf, who believed that his legs were given to him to sit on the floor, but not to walk. All the remedies the woman had tried had no effect, and now there was only one way out. She went to the house, brought a loaded gun and pointed the barrel at the calf's head.

"Now, asshole, you either get up or I pull the trigger and get a piece of well-done steak for dinner tonight."

Apparently, such ultimatum made something move in the head of this representative of the theory of large, but in reality small horned cattle. Perhaps the animal didn't understand words, but the sight of a gun aimed at your head is understandable in any language of the world. The calf stood up, fell down, got up again and lazily wandered outside.

The woman smiled and was about to take the weapon back into the house when she heard the sound of a car engine. She looked up at the dirt road that led away from the main road and straight to her house. Through the dust and dry dirt, she could see the outline of a car heading toward the house. Experience told her that the car was probably occupied either by those who were going to make her a favorable offer for the sale of her farm, or by common bandits who had decided that a farm far away from human settlements was a tidbit. Though, frankly speaking, the woman didn't see any difference between the first and second. Except that the second ones were a little more honest and didn't hide their intentions.

The car stopped near the entrance to the farm. It was getting dusk, and her eyesight wasn't as sharp as it used to be, but she knew perfectly well that to hit a man it was enough to see his outline. She raised the gun and slowly walked toward the car.

A woman got out of the car, followed by several other figures. The landlady followed the long-standing principle of people whose farms should be put in the Red List: the first thing she did was shoot.

The side window of the car shattered. The suspicious persons immediately hid on the other side of the car.

"Get your sneaky asses outside and pray that I find the reason for your visit convincing." The landlady slowly came closer and closer without lowering her rifle. "Otherwise you are in big trouble gentlemen."