The Loch Ness

Prologue

A shrill cry echoed through the mist, and my head jolted up, disturbed from the task at hand. My body stiffened as I listened carefully, but nothing followed. It seemed that the scream had not only scared me but the wildlife as well. The morning birds were no longer chirping, the squirrels were no longer chattering amongst themselves and the few rabbits that had been bouncing laround the field had disappeared into the ground.

I stood, sweeping a hand along my brow, wiping away the cold sweat that seemed to seep from my body. My eyes darted left and right my nerves on edge. I reached for the shotgun I had brought with me into the paddock in hopes of catching a goose or rabbit. Now I was planning on catching something more sinister. I brought it around my body, the sleek wood sliding along my coat as I loaded one shot into it as quietly as I could. I stood there on high alert for a good half an hour waiting for this creature, whatever it was, to come. When nothing eventuated I retreated quietly home.

The rest of the day was filled with questions. By the time I had changed and gotten ready for the day, the Mcgurk's boy was already at my door, asking if I knew what had happened and who had screamed. I shook my head.

"Sorry Johnny, but I saw nothing." I say as I push him back out the sparse wooden door. " Now run back home. It isn't smart for a young boy like you to be out and about until we find out what caused such a scream."

He frowned. "Papa thinks it could be a bear." he said, refusing to budge from my doorway.

"Aye it could be." I said shoving past him. "But we've had bear attacks before" what I did not tell the young lad for fear of scaring him too much was that the scream had sounded different. This morning when that scream echoed through the woods, it was a guttural piercing noise unlike anything I had heard before, and that even the squirrels had cowered. "I was out in the field laying down some new seeds, so maybe I was closer and heard it clearer than your papa, but it didn't sound like a bear" actually when I had heard that scream this morning, it had felt like all the warmth in the world had been sucked from my body I involuntarily, shivered at the thought.

"A wolf?" he questioned, following me around the farmhouse persistently.

"Ach no, wouldn't think so. wolves have not been spotted here for years, and besides we would have heard them howling." I hastily said, picking up the pitchfork, while pushing open the door to the stable, and brandishing it towards the lad to herd him out. "Now leave me be, I have animals to tend too."

"Oh okay." he said then turned, head dropping down to his chest as he turned and ran down the path, his feet slipping on the stones.

"Bye Mr Jones!" he called over his shoulder, having recovered quickly from the momentary disappointment of not hearing more intel to spread around the houses.

I got back to work feeding the horses hay, and mucking out their stalls. I was another half hour before someone else came wandering down the road. I looked up, and heaved a sigh at who I saw. Smith. That man could not keep his nose out of anyone's business. As he walked down the path towards me, I stood straightening my back and stabbed the pitchfork into the nearest hay bail.

"Ay Smith. What do you want with me?"

"Well Jones, I heard you were out in your fields earlier this morning. In fact you were out there at the exact moment it happened. Did you see anything?"

I snorted.

"Smith, if I saw anything do you think I would be standing in here? No. I'd either be out there warning the townspeople, or Mcgurk's Boy would have found my dead body in the field this morning when he came to ask me the exact same thing you just did. But I will tell you something. In the minutes after the scream, It felt like the whole world had stopped. Not a bird was singing, no rabbits were bouncing. I even think the trees stood still." I said, staring Smith right in the eye.

"Ach, I believe you Jones." he said, raising his hands in a show of surrender.

"Alright I have some work to do."

Tugging the pitchfork back out of the bail, I proceeded to walk back to the house. What I'd told Smith and Johnny weren't lies. In Johnny's case there was no way it could be wolves. And the forest did stand still for the minutes after the scream. But the one lie I had told them both, was that I saw nothing. In truth, I saw everything.