Creepypasta [ON HOLD AGAIN]

The Thing In The Feilds

When I was young, I lived on a farm in rural Oregon with my parents; I was an only child. We didn't have a big, commercial farm. It was only at a family-type standard. We had five cows, three horses, a small herd of goats, two dogs, and one chicken coop. We also had some Indian Runner ducks that we kept for the most part as pets. We didn't really make any money off the place, just enough to sustain the animals and a little extra for ourselves. However, we were able to sustain enough to take a decent vacation, every couple of years. Dad had his other job in town, an insurance agent. He was the only one around, really. The town population wasn't more than about 1,500 people. Mom gave horse-riding lessons as well. We weren't rich, but we were comfortable.

It was really an easy life (or at least it could have been a lot worse), I went to school, Dad went to work, Mom took care of the animals, then we all had dinner together every night, and I would go to bed while Mom and Dad had a beer or two and watched the news. Sometimes at night I would hear things outside. Mostly just normal stuff. The cows or horses would get spooked by a coyote or something, or I would hear the dogs chasing a rabbit, barking their heads off. Every once in a great while we would find a chicken dead. Dad would always tell me about it but never let me see the body, although I asked frequently. He would keep Mom and I inside until he had gone out, did whatever he did with the body, throw sawdust over any blood, and then life would go on as normal. I assumed it was foxes, as I had seen a couple of them out in the pasture over the years, slinking around back and forth through the grass.

The summer when I was ten years old, I remember helping Mom change the bedding in the horse stalls, when we heard a huge racket going on outside. If you've never heard the sounds of a horse in pain, you don't want to, trust me. It almost sounds like a person screaming. Well, that's what we heard, and one of our horses, the palomino, came running into the barn with a wound on its left thigh. Four long marks, like claw marks, ran across its body for about a foot. It had blood running down its leg, and was limping. I was so scared by the sight of that much blood that Mom locked the horse in a stall and made me go inside with one of the dogs. She told me to lock the door and stay inside until she came in to get me. I did.

Eventually Mom came inside and told me that the horse had hurt itself on the barbed wire that ran the perimeter of the pasture, we owned more land beyond that, but it was mostly forested. I guess I believed her at the time, but at dinner that night I noticed Dad was being particularly quiet and Mom was talking a lot more than she normally did. She was being really animated, and I noticed that Dad had gotten his rifle out and set it by the back door. Usually he only did that when the coyotes had been acting up.

That night I went to bed as normal, but I had trouble falling asleep. I turned on my desk lamp and decided to read comic books until I got tired. I have a very vivid memory of reading Uncanny X-Men and hearing the back door open. Looking out, I could see my Dad by the porch light, lighting a cigarette and holding his rifle under his arm. He started walking over to the driveway and then turned to follow the fence line. I couldn't sleep until I knew Dad was back safe. I kept coming downstairs with the excuse of getting water to see if Dad was back in the house yet, and each time all I saw was Mom sitting on the couch in the living room, staring at a blank TV screen and looking worried, sighing occasionally. Eventually, about 4 in the morning, I think, Dad did come back, and I was so tired and relieved that I fell asleep as soon as I knew he was home. He never told me what he did that night, but I never thought to ask.

Two months later I was back in school. It rains a LOT in Oregon in the fall, and this day was no different. All I could hear from my bedroom was rain hitting the ground and the aluminum roof of the chicken coop. There was light thunder in the distance, but it was slowly getting closer. I thought I had heard a coyote yapping out around the garage, or it could have been one of the dogs. I looked out, straining my eyes to see whatever there may have been. In a brief and distant lightning flash I saw something. It looked almost like a person, but hunched over, and with a long torso. It was tall, taller than Dad, who was a good six foot four, at least. I just barely caught a glimpse of it on the near side of the garage, then the light faded and I didn't see it again that night.