© Mark Bond | Dreamstime.com

Willie lay half-hidden, cautiously peering out over the top of the dirt. All around him were bodies, decomposing where they lay. Flies buzzed about the still forms and an occasional spider scurried across them, although mostly the spiders stayed out of sight, mindful of the crows that hopped from body to body, pecking away at the remains.

The sky was a bright blue and the sun was shining. If it hadn’t been for the carnage surrounding him, it could have passed for an ordinary day. Willie had a feeling there wouldn’t ever be any more ordinary days.

He shivered a little as a slight breeze stirred across the field. He still couldn’t believe what had happened.

Seven days ago he couldn’t have imagined any of this. It was spring and emerging everywhere were signs of new life — birds making nests, a newborn fawn peeking cautiously from the tree line a few hundred yards away and butterflies flitting from flower to flower.

Willie and his friends had been lazily basking in the sun, just laying back and soaking up the warmth. None of them had an inkling of what was to come.

Only Graz Johnson had a premonition, warning them to be careful.

Old man Johnson was a lot older than the rest of them. Willie wasn’t sure exactly how old, but he was real old — Willie knew that. Johnson was also the most pessimistic in the community. He was constantly warning them about disasters lurking just around the corner.

We were fools, Willie thought bitterly. We should have listened to him.

But they hadn’t. Johnson didn’t talk a lot and everything he said was negative. “Watch out for this. Be careful of that.” But nothing he had warned them about previously had come true, so they became convinced that he wasn’t worth listening to — just a crazy old coot.

“If it rains out of a clear sky at night,” Johnson had said a few days before the slaughter, “bad things are going to happen.”

Willie and his friends had laughed at this; it rained plenty of times during the day when there were no clouds, just blue skies and sunshine. Why would it make any difference if it rained at night? It was pretty obvious — old man Johnson wasn’t right in his head.

Then, seven nights ago, it had rained — out of a clear sky. Willie could see the stars and the moon shining so brightly they looked like you could just reach out and touch them. He felt a little uneasy then, but he wasn’t really worried. Everyone knew old man Johnson was crazy.

But then the next morning had arrived. Everything was still wet from the night’s rain.  Willie and his friends were just hanging out, like they always did. When the attack came, it was so sudden that they were all caught off-guard. A shadow passed over them and Willie didn’t even have time to look up. One moment his friends were there and the next they were laying crumpled up in the field, dead. Just like that. Willie didn’t know how he had survived — maybe it had something to do with his size. He was smaller than the rest of his friends. Maybe he hadn’t been seen.

It hadn’t done old man Johnson any good to be suspicious, either — Willie could see him laying a short ways away, unmoving and starting to turn a sickly grey as the heat got to his body.

As Willie looked around, he could feel the anger welling up in him. Not everybody had been killed — mostly just Willie and his kind. There were plenty of others around who hadn’t even been touched — still living, not caring what had happened to Willie and his friends. He had puzzled over it the past seven days and thought it was some kind of ethnic cleansing, although he couldn’t be sure.

Ten or 15 yards away he could see the bodies piled up. It didn’t look too bad on the outside, as long as you didn’t think about it too much. It was the birds that bothered him most of all. They hopped all over, pecking at the pile, pulling at the bodies, occasionally lifting a corner so you could see the whitish-green color of the decaying flesh underneath. And that’s when the smell hit you too — the smell of death, accelerated by the moisture and growing heat.

As days had passed and nothing else occurred, he’d convinced himself that nothing else bad was going to happen. That somehow, he’d been spared.

But last night it had rained again. Stars shining, moon out. He hadn’t slept at all. He just kept hearing old man Johnson’s voice: “Bad things are going to happen.” Willie hunkered down and tried to make himself invisible.

* * * * *

Velma Jorgenson stepped gingerly off her porch, holding her gardening basket in one hand and her wide-brimmed hat in the other. She had just finished eating her breakfast: as always, one poached egg, one slice of whole-wheat toast, and a cup of tea.

The sky was a clear blue, but the ground was still damp from last night. She moved slowly. You couldn’t be too careful when you were 83 and a little unsteady. Her friend Louisa had fallen and broken her hip over a year before and was still using a walker.  Velma didn’t want anything like that to happen to her. No, you couldn’t be too careful at her age.

She shuffled along the path towards the garden. The grass on either side of the path was starting to get high. It would need to be cut soon. Velma didn’t like it when things got all wild looking. It was a matter of pride. She liked keeping the old place up. Everybody knew that Velma Jorgenson was the best gardener in the county and she intended to keep it that way.

When she was nearly to the garden a shadow suddenly passed overhead and she looked up, startled. It was only a cloud passing over the sun but since her eyesight had started to fail she’d been feeling a lot more vulnerable. I’m getting skittish as an old goat, she thought ruefully. I’m starting to jump at everything.

She made a last turn on the path and the garden came into view. She loved the garden. Sometimes she thought if she didn’t have it to keep her busy, she would just dry up and blow away.

As she passed along the rows, she let her hands trail across the corn. She liked the feel of it on her fingers. Her fingers were still strong. Probably from all the work I do out here, she thought. She noted with satisfaction that the carrots were growing well and the sweet peas starting to blossom. Velma liked a garden with color — some people didn’t believe it, but she thought having color in a garden made everything grow better. She bent and put her garden basket on the ground, put her wide-brimmed hat on and fastened it under her chin. It was going to be another hot one today.

Another shadow fell over Velma Jorgenson, but she didn’t look up this time. Silly old woman, she thought, smiling to herself. Afraid of clouds.

* * * * *

A shadow fell over Willie. Terror ran through his body like a hot knife. This was it! He wanted to scream but no sound came out. His mind screamed at him to run but he just stood rooted to the spot.

Velma Jorgenson looked fondly around her garden. She loved all the growing things in it, all the new life. The corn, lettuce, carrots — she loved it all. She looked down and grimaced a little. Well, maybe not everything, she thought as she leaned down and reached toward Willie. Weeds, she didn’t like weeds.

Richard Bell

Richard Bell was born in Coos Bay, Ore. in 1947. He graduated from the University of Oregon in 1973 and Hastings College of Law in 1976  — and then went into commercial fishing. He has fished Alaska, Oregon, Washington and California for salmon, crab, tuna and halibut. He wrote a lot when he was young and started writing again the last couple of years. He lives in El Granada with his wife Karen and his daughter Katherine.