A Happenstance At Westingham County - Chapter 1 - is a fictional story of horror written by Sandie May Joyce. All these chapters I have posted in this will be published in my new book when the stories are completed. Please scroll down to read this chapter.
NOTE: I've found a picture for this story! - A picture of the mushrooms, not of the dead cows.
A Happenstance At Westingham County
Chapter 1
It is said that those shooting stars you see in the sky are actually meteors that will fall to earth, and should you ever see one, you better know where it is going to land.
This evening, Farmer Luke went to bed just as he normally would. Suddenly, as he looked out the window he saw a shooting star flying right above his farm.
During the early hours on the following morning, he went down to his fields to begin some work. As he was walking down the farms he could see some bright lights shining through from a portion of his fields. He proceeded to walk toward the lights and was greatly surprised to find what he saw. There, in the middle of his fields, a portion of land had sunken to the ground as if it was a crater!!
Goodness! The shooting star must have fallen into my farm! He thought.
The sunken area was large. It looked as though it could be as large as 350,000 sq. ft. all round as if it was a crater. In it was some sort of plant which, to Luke, resembled some huge mushrooms. Amongst them was one that really stood out, because it naturally illuminated a bright white light.
Luke was all excited. He couldn't believe his eyes. It must have been some kind of miracle or magic. He had not even planted any mushrooms in this part of the field, and he had never seen a mushroom that could emit light before.
He half-slid, and half rolled down the sunken area to try to get a closer look at those mushrooms and found that as soon as his feet touched the sunken ground, the entire group of mushrooms had changed into beautiful colors.
“Beatrice! Beatrice! Come take a look at what I’ve found! Beatrice!” He called out to his wife at the top of his lungs in the strangest excited voice only he, himself, could recognize. He was both excited and scared and he pinched himself to find out if this was real, or if he was still sleeping in his bed dreaming about all this. His mind filled with millions of thoughts with all of the questions that no one was there to answer. His heart was beating so fast he felt as though he could fly.
The shooting star must have fallen into my farm! He blurted out his own thoughts this time, aware of the strange sound emitting from his throat.
Beatrice heard his voice calling out to her from the field just as she was feeding the chickens. It sounded foreign, and she wondered if something had happened to Luke. She stopped feeding the chickens immediately and came running out to the field to find out what was happening. As she came closer she could not believe her eyes!!! She was greeted by the sight colorful mushrooms. They were all so beautiful! She wondered where they had come from - she couldn't remember planting them. Some appeared to be ripening already, so they harvested a few and brought them home. They wondered if they should cook and eat the mushrooms. Or were they even safe for consumption? But Farmer Luke had a better idea. He told Beatrice in order to play it safe he should make some wine with the mushrooms, since alcohol is known to detect any poison or gems and would kill them on contact.
Luke made some large pots of red tea and stirred in some brown sugar. Then in each pot of the red tea, he placed a ground-up mushroom inside and added some wine yeast. He left the mushroom and red tea mixture sitting in each of the pots for 7 days. By the end of the 7th day, he poured out the liquid into another jar. The liquid by now had become red wine. He dipped a wooden spoon into the jar and placed a drop in his mouth to taste it.
"Ah! This taste exquisite! A very fine wine indeed!" he muttered.
Both Luke and his wife Beatrice poured the mushroom wine into the wine glasses. When finished drinking, they felt a warm sensation running through their whole bodies, up and down their spines. They immediately felt a strong sensation to their muscles and it made them both feel really good and strong. They felt like they had a burst of energy within minutes after drinking the wine!
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(The following scene is still in Luke's farm, so I had to keep this part as Chapter 1 as well. I like to keep same location and scene in the same chapter)
"You won't believe it. Another herd of cattle was killed last night. All shred to pieces at the neck. It looks like we are struck by some kind of unknown wild animals! We need to organize a search team, armed with rifles. This is no joke. These are hungry wild animals," Detective Martin warned Sheriff Cook.
Sheriff Cook has a hard case on hand. These mysterious "animal attacks" on the cattle had only surfaced about two weeks ago, and so far no one has actually seen the "monster" yet. Farmers around this area are taking great precautions. They are locking their cattle away in the barns now before they go to sleep at night for their safety - but even so, this had not stopped the monstrous attacks to the cattle. Horses and cows are dying everyday, and it seemed as though there was nothing anyone could do. The cows were hit the hardest, and marked as the majority of the victims. As the cows died away, the dairy products for the township became rare. Sheriff Cook knew he needs to put a stop to this once and for all, but was at a loss as to what to do next.
He drove to Farmer Luke's farmland, and found at least ten cows and three horses had been mauled to death. As in the past weeks, those wounds seemed to have been caused by strong sharp claws. It would not surprise him if this had been caused by some adult lions or tigers, which seemed to have been very hungry.
Perhaps there was a family of hungry lions or tigers hiding in the vicinity? Sheriff Cook knew he needed to act fast to hunt down these predators. This should not be delayed. If there were wild animals roaming around this town, not only the cattle are at risk, the lives of the townsfolk are at risk as well.
He called on a search party to armed with rifles, and they combed the town and the neighbouring towns as well. The Sheriff vowed he would not stop until these deadly predators were found. The strangest thing about this is that they could not find anything during the day. The predators only come out at night, and yet you cannot even see or hear them. Farmer Luke said he thought his cattle were safe because he didn't hear anything. If the animals truly were under attack, they would have made a lot of noise and he would have known about it, but he didn't hear anything and only woke up to find his cows and horses are dead. The death toll of his cattle devastated him and his wife.
Lucas joined the group of searchers. He worked in the adjacent farm next to Luke's. He was the new farm hand that Farmer Harvey had recently hired. He and his co-worker Jamie were on the search team. They both joined the search at Luke's farm, searching the property inch by inch. They were both determined to find the unknown monster once and for all. After more than two hours search they still had not found anything unusual about the farm, nor were there any traces of animal paw prints that would bring them to a conclusion that there were predators. They found, however, some human footprints, but they could only assume that these were the prints made by the search parties. They followed these footprints which led them to the a distant spot that seemingly illuminating some bright lights.
"Look!" Lucas pointed to the distant light. "What do you think that is?"
They proceeded with caution, rifles in hand, ready to shoot! They came upon a large crater filled with mushrooms that were as tall as trees. They stood atop of the crater's edge and wondered what kind of mushrooms these were. They were larger than they had ever seen!
"Hey! What do you think of this?" Jamie asked Lucas curiously.
" I believe these are mushrooms," Lucas answered.
"Holy Mack! I have not seen mushroom as large as trees!" Jamie said. He began to slide down the crater to take a better look.
"Wait! Don't go down there! You don't know what they are! Let's call the other searchers first!" Lucas screamed out to Jamie, but it was too late. Jamie had already landed inside the crater. Suddenly, the entire mass of mushroom sprung into colour, and lit up the massive hole in the earth.
"C'mon down, Lucas! The ground is very soft. This is like magic. Let me get one of these species and we can show this to the search team. Obviously, this is not the predators that we are looking for. I wonder what they will say about this!"
Against his better judgment, Lucas slid down to the crater as well.
"Hey! What is Luke hiding from everyone? Look at these babies! You probably can sell these for a fortune!" Lucas remarked as he looked around.
Lucas's eyes went wild when he saw one at a distance. - A tall plant that looked more like a tree than a mushroom, illuminating a bright white light, This mushroom tree dwarfing everything that stood next to it.
"Look at that tall one! Wow! This place looks like a mushroom kingdom!" Jamie said.
With Jamie leading the way, Lucas followed cautiously behind. As they got closer to the big mushroom tree Jamie's foot suddenly stepped into an extra soft area that had caused his foot to sink into the ground. Jamie screamed as he watched his foot being pulled under. His eyes were large, filled with surprise and fear.
"Help! Help me, Lucas! I'm going down! Something is pulling me down!"
Lucas watched in horror as Jamie slowly slid into the earth. He thought perhaps Jamie had stepped into some quicksand, but the ground did not resemble that! It simply just gave way! As he tried to pull Jamie up he saw some dark long claws come to the surface from underneath the ground. The claws were pulling Jamie's leg under! Now, they have got ahold of Jamie's other leg as well!
Jamie cried out in pain.
"Help! Lucas, help me! Please don't let go!" He cried as he held on tightly to Lucas's arm.
Lucas tried to pull Jamie up, but couldn't muster the strength. He tried to break free from Jamie's grip, but it was of no use. Both Jamie and himself were sinking fast into the ground. Before he could fathom what was going on, another large black claw had come to the ground surface and pulled Lucas down under as well. Lucas' eyes were wide opened in horror as he watched himself being pulled under, his cries for help muffled by the sand.
Later, some other people from the search team arrived and found their rifles at the edge of the crater. They stepped into the pit to look for them but only to meet with the same fate.
The search team which began with forty people are now down to thirty, ten people had mysteriously vanished.
Sheriff Cook wondered if there was a monster eating up these people. The monster would have made a lot of noise, but the searchers had not heard anything. The people had just simply disappeared.
Later they had called on other people to search for the missing, but no one had found nor heard anything.
Because people are missing one after another without a clue and seemingly without any reason, Sheriff Cook had to temporarily call off the search. They would, however, assign some night watchers to watch over Luke's Farm.
By nightfall, the searchers climbed up the trees, and waited.
Those mushrooms must be aliens and feast on humans. Great story! I can't wait to read the next chapter. Hope all is well, Sandie! Hurry back!
Gav
Reviewed by Danny Underwood
8/15/2018
Such beauties in those mushroom in the picture! They should not be deadly. I hope those claws from underground didn't belong to the mushrooms. This reminds me of the movie "Tremors", but those monsters don't have claws.
Did you ever wonder what happened after the Archangel Michael through the demons out of heaven? Let one of them guide you through the origin of evil in the world.
The fortunate inherit riches, prestige, positive notoriety. Those not so lucky bear legacies filled with poverty, infamy or, worse yet, the unhinged insanity and murderous urges of their ancestors.
A Happenstance At Westingham County
