The Berserker

When Farmer Bernard Burns got out of bed on the Tuesday morning, it was 0500 and minus 6. He went through his usual routine of tea, toast and cigarette, and then put on the thickest pair of socks he could find.

One thing that Bernie Burns hated was cold feet.

The tractor ride to the pigsty was especially cold today, as this was the first main frost of the winter, and his breath froze with every exhale as he bobbed his way across the yard.

The hour it took him to clear out the swill from the sty was the worst hour of his week, and the hour he dreaded most.

“Nothing will prepare you for the smell,” his father had told him when he was 8 years old. “And it will never get any more bearable,” he had added.

His father had been right.

Bernie was 54 years old, and the pungent smell had been in his nostrils for the last 50 of them.

He finished off the pigs and rested in his tractor for half an hour, enjoying a cup of tea from his thermos, and a cigarette from his rolling tin.

The Sun was rising slowly over the horizon of Blaise Knoll Abbey as he opened the gate that led into the cow field.

He closed the gate and climbed back into the tractor, peering over the semi-illuminated filed as he did.

Up ahead of him was a mound in the field that looked like a boulder had been dropped from the sky, and so he climbed from the tractor and walked carefully toward the mound, looking around as though he was expecting it to be some kind of trap.

Because of his focus on the mound, he didn’t see the deep impression in the mud, and he lost his balance as his foot lowered more than he expected.

“God damn it,” he said as he stood back up.

Bernie approached the mound with his hand out stretched, and pulled it away when he touched the cowhide. He spread his fingers and placed his hand, palm down, onto the cow and smoothed it slowly.

“Get on,” he said, as he lightly tapped it on the rump, but the cow remained motionless. “What the hell?” he said as he walked around to the front of the cattle and saw the gaping hole where its udder used to be.

The insides of the cow had been completely hollowed out, and there were minimal traces of blood on the grass. A stack of ribs were next to the hole, and they were clean to a shining white.

Bernie stood and turned to look out into the field with his mouth open.

Each one of his herd was lying sporadically around the field on their sides.

He moved to the next carcass and fell to his knees at the sight of the ravaging that had taken place.

The blood was sprayed at least twenty feet around, as though the cow had been dropped from a great height and splatted like an over ripe orange. Every bone from the cow was laid around, all gleaming clean, and its body was collapsed in a flat heap.

“What could have done this?” he said as he touched the fur of his cattle.

He moved around to each of the other 13 cattle of the herd and inspected the havoc that had attacked them, with each one gutted and their bones stripped clean.

Bernie suddenly remembered what was in the next field, and he ran to the separating gate to check on his prize winning bull, and he collapsed in a heap at the foot of the gate when he saw the remains of the bovine spread across the 1 acre field.