My flock of thirty-two lambs in my newest and southernmost paddock were a mix of newly bought and some from my own lot. With only two rams last November due to unfortunate cases of flystrike, I had lost a few rams, and my ewes had not birthed many lambs during Spring.
I was fortunate that one had birthed quads, each with a white dot on their foreheads. Four healthy lambs from one mother ewe is a rare sight. A local farmer, Jonathan, had suggested a farm vet who arrived in all black and supplied supplementary milk. I had to bottle-feed them four times a day as the poor mother couldn’t keep up with milk production.
Sadly, one of the lambs passed between morning feeds. An unknown cause had taken it
“The land taketh what you oweth.” Jonathan whispered. At first, I had thought it was just old farmer talk for ‘I’m sorry for your loss’.
Incineration, though a standard process for dead livestock, felt far too cruel for a baby, so I buried the body deep in my fields with the rest of them. I hoped that my good treatment of the creatures would visit me back in good karma and nutritious grass for my livestock.
The triplets, now six months of age, reside in the paddock I mentioned earlier. With their late birth, they are too young to breed and are separated from the ewes, ready for the new season. They sit larger than the rest. It was a sign that the supplementary milk had done them well and I had fed them correctly. A proud achievement of mine.
I’m relatively new at farming; The land I now own belonged to a relative on my dad’s side and was eventually passed on to him. The land he had owned - yet not wanted, was given to me after his death. It took a lot of work (and money) to renovate it, and I’ve received a lot of support from the nearby farmers since then. Even if they did find it strange that I suddenly wanted to become one of them.
After months of intense studying to ensure the animals I raised would be treated well, I ultimately decided to start it easy with sheep. Unfortunately, I underestimated just how difficult they can be.
Two weeks ago, I visited the lambs in the morning to find them walking nonstop in an almost perfect circle. They had been doing it throughout the night as the autumn grass had been worn down from their trotters. I even entered their flight zone, which usually would have sent them fleeing from me. However, the lambs continued their march with their lower halves coated in mud and their eyes hazed. Not even my Farmdog Holly’s barking and nipping could snap them out of it. In fact, they almost crushed her.
The other farmers and I had suspected Listeriosis, aka ‘circling disease’. But it became a mystery when the other paddocks were not affected despite feeding on the same supplementary hay. It was as if their flock mentality had activated, and they were trying to flee from something.
With people, I didn’t know arriving to see the lambs. It became an area mystery. Even local news took an interest in the matter. However, nobody yielded a solution.
In the early days, I released one of my mentally stronger, older ewes into the paddock, hoping the lambs would sense her seniority and break away from their trance. At first, she stayed clear of the group and grazed at the grass. But eventually, she was drawn to the circle - as if magnetised.
The other farmers were unsure of what to do. This behaviour had been reported as common with sheep left in pens for too long. But with a vast paddock to themselves, it just didn’t make sense. Jonathan had lent me a few of his farm dogs to try and break the circle up, but they remained tightly packed and unresponsive. I reached out to multiple vets, unable to track down the one that had helped me with the quads.
In fact, Johnathan helped me with a lot of things. Even going so far as to give me a ewe to aid with my lambing.
Each vet that visited suggested Listeriosis. Some of the vets had theorised that the soil in the paddock had become contaminated. Bullshit. I told them that the lambs had access to my supplementary hay as frost began to claim the fields during night and dawn.
November’s cold rain flooded the fields and created thick mud. Day by day, the lamb’s pathing formed a moat around the central patch of grass. Despite everything, the patch of land in the middle remained dry. Some of the lambs began to pass away by day ten. Their starved and tiny bodies were stampeded and crushed to a pulp by the remaining - yet dwindling numbers.
Soon enough, the moat had become so deep that I could only see the top of their heads. The farmers came by every other day, equally intrigued. They’d watch on with focused eyes and raised brows as if the sight triggered deep thought. Each day, they’d witness a drop in the number of lambs, but none of them would offer their condolences.
With fewer live lambs, I used a pulley system to lift the corpses out of the ground. Most of them were floppy, their bodies the consistency of bean bags with their broken and crushed bones, some ripped apart from days of lying at the bottom. Once cleared, we used the system to trap a live lamb and lift them out. When we had gotten it to the surface, the lamb flipped out, its body swung around violently as it tried to get back into the pathing, and when restrained, it whipped its head around so wildly that it intentionally broke its own neck.
“Things like this happen. The land taketh what you oweth,” Jonathan assured me. His voice was calm and soothing. “Did ya’ speak to my guy?” he asked.
“I never got his number after his visit. Do you think you can call him?”
“I’ll give it a try. He’s hard to reach.”
When I visited the paddock this morning, their air was thick with moisture. The fog was suffocating and foreboding. It almost felt as if I was drowning. The grass under my feet felt soft. As if the damp air had mixed with the mud and softened it. Between phlegmy coughs, I peered into the moat. At first, I heard nothing. With just four lambs, including the triplets, alive just the night before, I was doubtful they would make it through the night.
And then I heard it. A wet, slippery noise filled the air; it sounded like somebody squishing a saturated sponge repeatedly. As I crouched down to the moat, it grew louder, and despite my efforts to focus my eyes through the fog, I could only see dark blobs moving below. My feet shuffled away from the edge, fearing a mysterious figure would come from the fog and push me in if I leaned closer.
An intense bleat sounded. It was harsh and loud yet muffled like it came from under the surface, and suddenly a rhythmic thudding echoed from below.
My flashlight illuminated the water droplets in the air and revealed the faint shadow of one of the lambs. I watched as it repeatedly slammed its head into the dirt, two other thumps in the distance following after each other. Instinctively, I shrieked and tried to reach the depths below to stop the lamb. Only for my fingertips to brush up against the now-soiled coat of the creature below. I recognised the material as one of the bigger dog coats I had to give the triplets due to their size.
Crackling trickled into my ears, almost likely a faulty electricity wire or the sound of water on hot oil. At first, it was practically impossible to hear it over the thudding, but it soon grew louder and louder and was quickly accompanied by strange vibrations in the ground. And I noticed the central island began to crack and break.
I pushed myself back onto my feet and took a few steps back, afraid that the cracks would infect the ground I stood on and swallow me up. I watched as the centre caved in like a sinkhole; the hole grew bigger, swallowing up the remaining dirt until there was just one giant hole instead of a moat.
Suddenly the air became light. No more cracks. No more thudding. Nothing. Time itself stood still while my rapidly beating heart created the soundtrack of my panic.
And so, with unsteady feet, I approached the hole yet again. I feared that the remaining lambs had gotten sucked in with the muck. And my worry for them triumphed against my frightened nature.
To my surprise, the three lambs remained stood in place. A small mud mound remained. The lump wriggled and squirmed as if something was trapped underneath.
Fearing that it was one of my lambs and that it would soon suffocate, I jumped in. I clawed at the damp dirt; the muck coated my hands and crawled under my nails. Until I finally hit something ice cold.
It was a small lamb, less than a month old, not one of mine. After all, lambs are only birthed in the Spring. Initially, it appeared to be dead. With the same dot as the triplets, I was almost sure it was the lamb I buried just months again. But when I stood up on all fours firmly, I was almost sent into shock.
I felt the need to cover it with a blanket and warm it up. However, something about the lamb seemed strange, as if it was controlling the air around me - as if we were both the same end of a magnet. I stumbled back from the force, almost tripping over one of the hoof crevices on the pathing. The remaining three lambs stepped forward and lay before the middle one. The act was practically cultish - or sacrificial. There was a sense of purpose in their movement. As if they had been working up to this moment.
“Hey!” I called out, followed by a whistle.
They didn’t spare me a glance. I knew that they had heard me. There was something different in their behaviour now than earlier. They seemed to have woken up from the trance they had been in over the past weeks.
Frantically, I scanned the surrounding area. It was doubtful somebody would be on my land, but after these two weeks, my place had become a hotspot.
Just beyond the fence of the paddock and through the lessening fog stood a dark figure dressed in black. Perhaps another farmer had arrived to check for any updates. I opened my mouth to call out to them but found myself lost for words. What was I shouting for? What was the emergency here?
An impactful crack flooded the area, followed by a few less harsh ones.
I turned my head and witnessed in horror as the smaller lamb stomped apart one of the triplet’s heads. And although I had come across plenty of corpses these past several days. This was different. My mouth flooded with saliva, and stomach acid soon followed, the pressure too much for my lips to hold back. And soon enough, I painted the ground with my insides.
When I looked back, the lamb had begun to feast on the viscera.
“Stop!” I screamed, my hands waving dramatically in the air to seem huge and intimidating. “Stop it!”. My throat burned as I cried, still coated with a mix of last night’s meal and drinks.
The lamb did not listen. And with the intense force pushing up against me, I could only watch on in disgust as it turned to another one of the triplets and did the same.
In just seconds, it all became too much. Erratically, I scrambled out of the hole and searched the surface for help, but the figure was gone. I was alone.
“Help!” I called through the moisture. “Please! Come back!”
The skull-bursting cracks echoed again as the lamb made contact with its final target. I didn’t have to look. I couldn’t.
Feeling helpless, I ran. No matter how far I fled from the scene, I couldn’t escape the images in my head. The atrocity which happened right in front of me was barbaric, unexplainable and left my stomach in knots. When I had created a large distance from the hole, I spared a look back, my feet still stumbling ahead of me.
Through the fog, multiple figures stood eerily around the site, staring into the crater below. It was difficult to make out any identifying features.
Suddenly, the surrounding ewes and rams in the remaining paddocks began bleating in unison as the shadows around the hole shifted and moved. I didn’t stick along for longer, fearing I owed the land much more than I could ever give it.