The Following
By
Sam Logan
Why did I play that stupid game last night?
Squeezing my eyes tight, blurred scenes flickered through my mind.
I tried to shake off the hovering hangover haze as I walked along the fence next to a pasture of wavy green grass. Sweat caught in my eyebrows and rolled down my back in the sticky, humid air of the late afternoon summer sun. The stench of pungent body odor, alcohol seeping from my pores, and manure wafted into my nostrils and turned my stomach upside down. My sandpaper tongue scratched the roof of my mouth like steel wool on dry, cracked fingertips.
A penetrating gaze bored through the back of my skull. Whipping around, I scanned the pasture but saw no one. Instead, a lone sheep had wandered away from its flock and pressed its dusty pink nose through wooden slats and stared with unblinking eyes into my own. Startled, yet relieved to have found the source of my unease, I extended a hand to pet its dirty-white fleece. The sheep huffed and backed away.
Easy there, pal.
I walked on, and the alcohol-induced fog continued to lift as remembrances floated into clarity.
My fingers on the planchette.
Shielding my eyes from the sunburst oranges, buttery yellows, and neon pinks of sunset, a growing sense of being watched once again crawled along my spine like a spider stalking its prey. A shooting glance behind my shoulder stopped me in my tracks.
My mouth agape, I gawked at the gathered white mass that threatened danger like a cumulonimbus cloud. A flare of white-hot goosebumps raced across my skin.
The flock of sheep stood motionless in perfect and unnatural rows of six across–their heads upright and ears perked sideways.
Without averting my gaze, I took one delicate step backward. They leered and stalked as they stepped forward in unison.
Another step backward. They inverted my movement and stepped forward with a deafening silence.
Blood pumped, pounded, and pulsed until my heart hammered faster and faster.
My vision narrowed to a pinprick, and all I could do was run, run, run.
And the flock chased, chased, chased until they barreled through the wooden fence–weakened from years of exposure to the elements.
I got knocked down and rolled like a log on the ground.
#
When I regained consciousness, I laid on my back and stared into the oil-black sky dotted with celestial bodies. My eyes fell on the sea goat constellation. Each star in the ancient pattern twinkled brighter than all the rest.
Sheep surrounded me. Their snouts sniffed and snorted in a halo above me.
I stood up.
All the sheep’s heads tilted upward and tracked my eyes. Clarity about the night before flooded into my consciousness.
The Summoning. It had worked.
I am their shepherd.
They followed me into the abyss.
Sam Logan (he/him) emerged in 1984 from the depths of the Chesapeake Bay off the Maryland shore. He made it to Oregon where he is a university professor in kinesiology and teaches courses about punk and body horror. Sam lives with his partner, kiddo, and Dune the dog. He has stories in Mouthfeel Fiction, Punk Noir Magazine, Divinations Magazine, Major 7th Magazine, Underbelly Press, and Wallstrait, among others. Find him at samloganwrites.com and sluggerfiction.com/masthead/
By
Sam Logan
Why did I play that stupid game last night?
Squeezing my eyes tight, blurred scenes flickered through my mind.
I tried to shake off the hovering hangover haze as I walked along the fence next to a pasture of wavy green grass. Sweat caught in my eyebrows and rolled down my back in the sticky, humid air of the late afternoon summer sun. The stench of pungent body odor, alcohol seeping from my pores, and manure wafted into my nostrils and turned my stomach upside down. My sandpaper tongue scratched the roof of my mouth like steel wool on dry, cracked fingertips.
A penetrating gaze bored through the back of my skull. Whipping around, I scanned the pasture but saw no one. Instead, a lone sheep had wandered away from its flock and pressed its dusty pink nose through wooden slats and stared with unblinking eyes into my own. Startled, yet relieved to have found the source of my unease, I extended a hand to pet its dirty-white fleece. The sheep huffed and backed away.
Easy there, pal.
I walked on, and the alcohol-induced fog continued to lift as remembrances floated into clarity.
My fingers on the planchette.
Shielding my eyes from the sunburst oranges, buttery yellows, and neon pinks of sunset, a growing sense of being watched once again crawled along my spine like a spider stalking its prey. A shooting glance behind my shoulder stopped me in my tracks.
My mouth agape, I gawked at the gathered white mass that threatened danger like a cumulonimbus cloud. A flare of white-hot goosebumps raced across my skin.
The flock of sheep stood motionless in perfect and unnatural rows of six across–their heads upright and ears perked sideways.
Without averting my gaze, I took one delicate step backward. They leered and stalked as they stepped forward in unison.
Another step backward. They inverted my movement and stepped forward with a deafening silence.
Blood pumped, pounded, and pulsed until my heart hammered faster and faster.
My vision narrowed to a pinprick, and all I could do was run, run, run.
And the flock chased, chased, chased until they barreled through the wooden fence–weakened from years of exposure to the elements.
I got knocked down and rolled like a log on the ground.
#
When I regained consciousness, I laid on my back and stared into the oil-black sky dotted with celestial bodies. My eyes fell on the sea goat constellation. Each star in the ancient pattern twinkled brighter than all the rest.
Sheep surrounded me. Their snouts sniffed and snorted in a halo above me.
I stood up.
All the sheep’s heads tilted upward and tracked my eyes. Clarity about the night before flooded into my consciousness.
The Summoning. It had worked.
I am their shepherd.
They followed me into the abyss.
Sam Logan (he/him) emerged in 1984 from the depths of the Chesapeake Bay off the Maryland shore. He made it to Oregon where he is a university professor in kinesiology and teaches courses about punk and body horror. Sam lives with his partner, kiddo, and Dune the dog. He has stories in Mouthfeel Fiction, Punk Noir Magazine, Divinations Magazine, Major 7th Magazine, Underbelly Press, and Wallstrait, among others. Find him at samloganwrites.com and sluggerfiction.com/masthead/
