Fields of Blood

1

The dawn broke early that morning. I looked out of my bedroom window to see the hills awash with blood and littered with bodies.

It was a Saturday, I remember that much; I was staying at the farm for the summer. Grandad insisted I help with the milking, so by then I was used to waking up in darkness, even in the middle of July. The early-morning sunshine confused me, and I got up to look. My alarm clock still said 05:01, but golden rays bathed the room. Unusual. Not that I cared much. I peered out of the window, expecting the rolling green hills that normally lay like sleeping giants across the horizon. Instead, I saw crimson slopes, mangled and broken bodies lying everywhere. I heard screaming. My grandparents came running, but they couldn't see the damage. They didn't know why I couldn't move away from the window, why (and I only realised that then) the high, keening scream issued from my throat.

Grandad shook my shoulder. "Vic? Victoria? What's the matter?"

I couldn't answer. I shook my head and moved past him into the bathroom. Grandma told him to leave and knocked on the door. "Vic, are you all right?" she said.

I forced myself to answer this time. "Yes, I'm fine," I managed, with the usual amount of indifference in my voice. I hoped Grandma would be satisfied by this, but the human capacity for curiosity once again baffled me. "Why were you screaming?"

"Bad dream," I told her shortly, splashing water on my face. There would be time for a proper shower later, but now I had to go. To help Grandad milk the cows. Yes, that was it. The cows. I gave my head a shake to sort my thoughts out and opened the door. Grandma had gone, in that unnerving way of hers. Mother says that's where I get it from – my bad habit of appearing and disappearing without so much as a by-you-leave.

I forced myself to continue with my day as usual, struggling to push the thought of that morning from my mind. Is it always so difficult to not think of something?

As it began to get dark, I pulled on my Wellingtons and announced I was going for a walk, as I sometimes did. I dragged a waterproof on as I marched across the yard, not letting the fear of those looming hills alter my steps. At the gate, I paused. It was properly dark now, and the moonlight washed all colour from the world – except the red. It was back, and it was everywhere. I looked back at the farmhouse, its windows throwing squares of gold onto the hard-packed earth of the yard. It would be so easy to ignore it, to push down my feelings as I did so often. But the crimson I had seen earlier pulsed behind my eyes, and I couldn't go back. I let the latch fall on the gate and started to walk. I kept walking until the grass was sticky underfoot and my boots were splashed with glistening smears of that same crimson. I heard myself screaming but couldn't seem to do anything about it. My body was frozen, rigid, unmoving, like the ones littering the ground around me.

I realised I had stopped and took another step. I couldn't afford to stand still; if the emotions overwhelmed me again there was no telling what would happen. It was too late now to go back – and I didn't fancy explaining why I was scrubbing my perfectly clean Wellingtons at 11:30 at night. Not yet.

My legs were working again and I moved forwards, head reeling. The red turned misty and clouded my eyesight, turning familiar markers into gory landmarks. I barely felt the burning in my muscles or the biting chill that came with this late at night. I barely felt anything – until something crunched under my foot. I looked down to see a skull rolling away and a solitary eyeball squelching into the grooves on my boots. An artery wriggled on the ground behind it, like some kind of demented tadpole. A pulverised jawbone, still with flesh stuck to it in places, joined the gunk.

That was it. I couldn't hold back the tidal wave of emotion and nausea, and I bent over and hurled my dinner onto the already slimy ground. I retched long after my stomach was empty, sending saliva and tears splashing into the puddle of bile.