The Bleating

It was in the twilight hours of a Saturday morning that Lora woke to the sound of sheep bleating. This made little sense, as she lived nowhere near farm or pasture. She lived in the heart of the ghetto, the concrete jungle, the trash-ridden streets of the inner city.

But it was sheep, bleating away right outside the window of her ground level tenement apartment. She nudged her boyfriend Daryl, who was sleeping next to her.

“You hear that shit?” she asked, but he didn’t wake up. “Daryl!” She pushed him harder.

“Wha, huh?” he muttered, eyes fluttering half-open. “I didn’t steal the cookies, Mom, it was Kyle! I just…” He trailed off, falling back asleep, snoring softly.

Lora rolled her eyes and got out of bed. She went to the window and moved the curtain just enough to peek out.

It was sheep, alright. Five of them. Standing on the muddy patch of unkempt grass in front of the building. Grazing and bleating. Bleating and grazing.

But something was odd about them. She couldn’t quite place it. She didn’t see sheep much, so there was little point of comparison in her memory, but she was sure there was something about these sheep which just wasn’t right, like they were missing something.

Suddenly one of the sheep perked up its head as if it heard a sudden noise.

Then it slowly turned and looked her way.

Then all the other sheep did the same thing, one by one.

At first she thought they must be looking at something above the building, maybe up in the sky.

But the trajectory of their stares would be right into her eyes if the curtains were drawn.

Then they started bleating. All of them together, a cacophonous chorus of sheep, bleating.

Staring right at her. Bleating in perfect unison.

She wanted to back away, scream, run, but she was frozen to the spot.

She was terrified, but inside that terror she was laughing.

The tension between these two poles of extreme, irrational emotion made her quake, first inside; gradually, the hand that held the curtain shook, then like a chill the quivering ran up her arm and seemed to slap her in the face like a wave.

She bleated.

She cupped a hand over her mouth, laughed, sobbed... bleated.

Laughed again, sobbed, shook... bleated.

Tears spilled down from her eyes, her lips quivered. She clamped her hand over her mouth harder, tried to stop it, swayed to and fro.

It was muffled, but she bleated. And bleated again. Her hand fell away from her mouth, her palm covered in spittle, and she bleated.

She walked up to the window, drew the curtains, stood tall, bouncing from toe to heel, bleating.

The sheep stared right at her and bleated.

Bleating in perfect unison with the sheep, bleating, bleating on the muddy patch of unkempt grass, standing at the window bleating, she was bleating with them, singing their song as one herd mind, bleating:

Where is she?

Baa.

Are you her?

Baa.

Have you found us?

Baa.

Lora was assailed by an awful vision.

A young girl in a white dress, hunched over. I see her from the back.

All the while, as she creeps up on the little girl inside her head, she stands by the window and bleats, as the sheep bleats, yes, yes, so does she!

The girl's shoulders move up and down. She’s got something in her hands. Eating something, I think. Really tearing away at it from the sound of things. Sounds like a mad dog. Snuffling, growling, screaming with delight. Gross!

I’m walking around her now, gonna see what she's got in her hands.

Lora stands at the window, stares at the sheep.

The sheep stare at her.

They bleat! They are one in the bleating! Their minds are one warbly, uneven note of simple, stupid yearning, yearning for the mindless bleat of the bleat!

To bleat or not to bleat?!?

Bleating, we walk around together, bleating, to see what the little girl in the white dress has in her hands, in her mouth, what is it she so hastily devours?

Daryl is finally awake, standing behind her. “Lora? Lora, you okay?”

He grabs her gently by the shoulders and shakes her. “Lora, babe, come on. Are you bleating like a sheep? What the fuck?” He shakes her a little harder. “Come on, babe, snap out of it!”

He tries to turn her, but she won’t budge. It’s like trying to turn a stone pillar.

He looks over her shoulder and sees the sheep. Hears their bleating now, realizes that all this time she’s been bleating with them, bleating with them in perfect unison, and the lead sheep catches his eyes and he’s—

—bleating as we look at a little girl, in a white dress, stained all down the front with blood. She’s gnawing on something, and her face is also smeared with crimson streaks.

She slowly raises her eyes, the look on her snarling face feral, mad; an incarnation of the utterly inhuman and inhumane, she pulls the floppy, thin meat away from her mouth and she shakes, and her mouth foams, and she screams, but we only bleat, bleat, bleat, for we have lost our tails, our yummy tails, that’s what she loves to eat, eat, eat!

Little Bo Creep lost all her sheep and she moans and wails and munches our tails!

We hate her so much, we don’t lose any sleep, we just count ourselves, it rarely fails!

Little Bo Creep will haunt your dreams with gnashing teeth and biting screams so cover your ass to keep your tail or she’ll cut it right off with her knife which gleams...

...beneath the Demon Moon, within the darkest night, in your corrupted soul...

...Little Bo Creep takes control!

Baa.

Baa.

Baa.

Baa.

Baa.