Bloodshot
written by: Emma Wells
Tired eyes strain in All Hallows’ Eve darkness. Nelly, an experienced birthing ewe, bleats uncontrollably, waking me. The scythe of the moon slashes a thin band of vitriolic light. Cold toed, I hurriedly dress, leaving my wife, and children, rushing to aid the ill-timed birth. Nelly, up until now, had given birth in the spring, so an October lamb was unexpected. Freakish.
On arriving in the chill-laced barn, Nelly stalks straw-filled ground, bleating fearfully, due to the over-large, breach lamb. Calming her to lie, bloodshot veins flicker, panicked eyes, crazed and pain drunk. Well-versed in lambing, I begin to pull the lamb; blood oozes through the straw, making a macabre river. After more tugging, the newborn is finally yanked free. Nelly writhes, contorts. As the frigid lamb is brandished in the air, hanging upside down, a trick to force it to breathe, Nelly bites me hard. Her munching teeth, flattened and grass-worn, are no longer, for piercing fangs hang, as she takes to chugging gulps of blood.
“Nelly, what in God’s name?” I stammer, struggling to control growing dread and the lifeless lamb.
I swing it harder in the air, and then, at last, it takes a breath. A tiny heart begins to pitter-patter. Tiny lungs dilate.
Exhausted, I drop as a stone to the blood-drenched straw.
Inspecting my hands using the chamber-stick, crimson curlicues form; short sleeves tucked in above my elbow, reveal stretching, distorted veins. My eyes shutter with a bloodshot lattice, veiling my view of the lamb, making it skewered, webbed in a scarlet net.
Stumbling, I run, terrified of Nelly, a once-dormant ewe. In panic, I strike myself on a tree. I lay unconscious but not all stills. Unknowingly, my incisors sharpen and lengthen, weaponising into fangs.
Dawn arrives as the cock crows, and I wake to muddy memories. I take myself to the field of sheep but find a massacre. A plethora of bloodied grey wolves carpet the once green grass, interspersed with other dead predators: buzzards, golden eagles, red foxes, and stoats.
All sheep fled.
Cowering, I make my way to a blood-soaked grey wolf. Bloodshot, its glass-dimmed eyes look up to me, pleading to be saved.
Heart drumming fast, sweat rivers down my back. I sprint to the farmhouse, praying that my wife and babes are safe.
Momentarily, the open barn door distracts. The lamb lingers on the threshold.
Bloodshot-eyed.
- Bloodshot - April 20, 2026
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