Sheep's Clothing by Gary Lewis (dark books to read TXT) 📗

Garbage littered the still blood-stained grass, soaked by the carnage it had recently seen. Nothing was grazing in this section of pasture, now devoid of life.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Sarah said with a tilt of her head, raising the yellow bands of tape over her head and ducking across.

"You do realize we're trespassing, right, Sarah?"

"I forgot my give-a-shit at home," she said, continuing onward.

She swept her feet slowly, side to side as she walked, sifting through the wet grass with her shoes. Crumpled grocery store bag in hand, she carefully picked up litter as she examined every irrelevant artifact like an investigator hot on the trail of the next Jack the Ripper.

"Most of this is probably from the cleanup crew," David said with a long, annoying yawn. "It wasn't all here yesterday."

Sarah crossed her arms in frustration with David's lack of enthusiasm. "How much of it?"

"Well, it's really hard to tell. You had to have seen it when the cows were here… everywhere."

"What do you mean everywhere?" she asked, one hand firmly on her hip. "I thought you said there were only ten or so of them."

"I mean cows were everywhere. It was like someone threw them in a wood chipper and sprayed them across this whole swath." David swung his arm across the path of the gore zone.

Their conversation was cut short by the choking of a loud, diesel engine. A heavily dented, old, blue pickup slowed down and puttered into silence beside David's car. The slam of a door followed. "Hey! David!” a voice shouted from the road. “Is that you out there?"

Sarah's brain suddenly juggled half a dozen plausible excuses while she quickly twisted the top of her makeshift evidence bag. A tall, lanky figure began to rise from the other side of the embankment. Finally, with a sigh of relief, she saw that it was Danny. The face of David's longtime friend reminded her of the short time they were together. If together is even what you call it.

"My bad. I didn't mean to interrupt," Danny said, shoving his long, unkept, brown hair out of his face. "When did y'all hook back up?"

David's eyes finally opened wide as he threw his palms forward. "No, no, no. You got the wrong idea. We're trying to figure out what killed all the cattle yesterday."

"You heard what happened to Brad last night?" Danny asked as Sarah rolled her eyes to the untimely, absent-minded inappropriateness that Danny was known for.

"Yeah,” Sarah said. “That's obviously why we're trying to find the mountain lion.”

"Mountain lion?" David and Danny both asked.

"Well,” she said. “What the hell else could it be?"

"Betcha it was Vance.” Danny said, pounding his fist into his other hand. “Heard he gave Brad quite the beat down."

Sarah wanted to speak up in Vance's defense, but realized that Danny might have a point. I don’t think he’d do that, but I’ll be damned if I call it wrong.

David spoke up with a sweep of his hand. "Vance can be a prick, but I doubt he would do something like that.” He lowered his hand to point at the field. “And surely not this."

Sarah studied David's certainty. It was strange coming from him. It wasn't just the fact that he took up for Vance. It was the sureness and confidence in his voice.

"I always thought you made a great couple," Danny said, steering the subject into even more turbulent waters than Sarah cared to navigate.

"I was with Brad,” she said with a sideways look in David's direction. “And everyone knows David is in love with Janice." If only David could keep his stupid friends in line. 

From the corner of her eye, David rubbed his head as she continued collecting debris and garbage from between the blood and dew-soaked grass.

"We have one more place to go," she said, squeezing the plastic, white grocery bag closed and walking in the direction of the car as David followed.

"Later, dude," Danny said, turning with a lazy wave that fell into the air. They parted ways with him, setting out without so much as a glance back.

###

Burning the gravel road, the midday summer sun beat down on them as they arrived at the cliffs. Sarah pressed her lips together in annoyance to David's loud snoring from the passenger seat where he slumped in near coma. "I should let you bake," Sarah said, checking the gas gauge before deciding to leave the car and air conditioner running for him. "I'll be back."

Sarah wandered, searching the ground, already feeling beads of sweat form on her forehead as she cautiously lurked toward the trailhead. Spread haphazardly across the soft dirt, multiple boot prints imprinted upon one another in every direction. Together, they were an impression of the frantic commotion that recently took place. Dragging through them all, the wheel prints of what was certainly a stretcher led to large tire marks that must've belonged to an ambulance.

"They went in here," she said, continuing toward the overhanging trees that reached to conceal whatever sinister scene laid beyond. Wondering if her uneasy feelings were conjured from her knowledge of what had taken place or instinctual, she pressed forward, shrugging off her fears.

Uncertainty filled her steps as she crept through the closed trail, getting closer to the creek where they had gathered just the day before. Pulling out the small, white grocery bag, still filled with evidence from the field, she began to crouch down, picking up every piece of litter that she came across.

Rushing water sounded from just ahead as the midday heat was replaced by a refreshing coolness under the forest canopy that sheltered her from the harsh summer sun. But the usual chirping of birds was replaced with an uncanny silence, creating a perceptual vacuum that seemed to draw her further in.

The distant blare of a horn snapped Sarah out of her trance. "What is it now?" she said. She slapped her thigh and traveled back toward the car. Her pace quickened with her breath as terrible possibilities raced through her mind. Was it really smart to leave him asleep in the car? Sleeping where something just ripped apart her boyfriend the night before. How could