Ryan Flynn didn’t question how the man knew, because—as Chester Wilson had told him earlier—he was a bona fide expert on star shit.
“We had it all over the fields when I was a kid.” Wilson hovered beside him as Ryan squatted and dipped a twig into a puddle of gelatinous goo. Lifting the stick closer to his nose, he sniffed the string of mucous-like substance dangling from the tip. If it was shit, it didn’t stink. The weird-looking stuff had no odor at all.
“You say it’s all over the field?”
Chester’s head bobbed up and down on his skinny neck. “Take a look.” He swept his arm to indicate the surrounding pasture. “See those globs? They’re all over the place. They’ll be melting soon. That’s how it was when I was a kid. You could set your watch by it.”
Ryan squinted against the morning sun, picking out several shiny silver-white patches on the grass. Whoever’d dumped the stuff in farmer Wilson’s pasture had gone to a lot of trouble. Yeah, it was a freak fest, some whacko’s idea of a joke, but it didn’t rate priority one. As a sergeant with the Mason County Sheriff’s department, his time could be better spent settling disputes between neighbors, hauling in the occasional drunk—or God forbid—responding to calls on Mothman sightings. Thankfully, Point Pleasant’s infamous “bird” had kept a low profile over the last four months.
“Could be someone’s playing a joke on you.”
“No, sir.” Wilson was adamant.
Ryan stood, doing his best to take the call seriously. He had the feeling a couple of teenagers were laughing their asses off somewhere. “When did you first notice the stuff?”
Wilson scratched his chin. “Just before I called to report it. I’ve been busy in the lower pasture and didn’t find it right off. But the star shit’s not the worst of it. Take a walk with me, and I’ll show you why I really called.”
Lucky him. It figured his first call of the morning would border on Twilight Zone territory. At least Wilson hadn’t blamed the Mothman for dumping the goo.
As they traipsed through the field, Ryan sidestepped several globs of the silvery goop. He’d collect some and send it for analysis, but the gunk would probably end up being a harmless concoction brewed in some kid’s backyard. At his side, Wilson kept up a steady monologue about how his father and the senior Wilson’s friends had dubbed the mucus-like stuff star shit back in ’66. Ryan had been a kid then, but vaguely recalled rumors about the gunk.
“We’d go to bed at night and the fields would be whistle-clean,” Wilson said. “Come morning we’d find the shit scattered all over the place. Sometimes there was silver tinsel mixed in. My dad had a name for that too. He called it outer space grass. It always turned up in the mornings the night after we’d see a weird light in the sky.”
Ryan pinched the bridge of his nose. Mothman sightings had quieted down, but lately they’d been replaced by residents reporting strange lights. He hoped Wilson wasn’t going to tell him he’d spied a UFO.
“What exactly did you want to show me?” he asked, trying to keep the man on track.
“It’s just over the next rise.”
Thankfully, the walk wasn’t far. As soon as they crested the hill, Ryan knew exactly what Wilson wanted him to see. A pattern of black-and-white splotches defined the bulk of a large farm animal lying on its side.
“Shit.” His muttered exclamation had nothing to do with stars or UFOs. Blowing out a breath, Ryan approached the cow wordlessly. Wilson and several other area farmers relied on their prized Holsteins to keep their dairy operations running smoothly. All he needed was for some drunk to have gone on a joyride and put a bullet through the animal’s skull. But all thoughts of tanked-up behavior fled the moment he got a closer look at the carcass.
Odd that the kill hadn’t attracted turkey vultures or crows, almost as if the poor thing was too defiled for a scavenger to touch. As far as he could tell there was no visible wound, bullet or otherwise. To be certain, he walked around the animal before squatting to take a closer look at its head.
“Sick, ain’t it?” Wilson asked.
Like something from a B horror movie. Ryan didn’t think an animal had that much blood in its body. The gory mess that had coagulated into a dense puddle under its head had come from its ears, nose, and mouth.
Grimacing, he glanced up at Wilson. “Was this animal ill, Chester?”
“No, sir. Fit as a fiddle.”
“Kind of a weird place to find her.” The cow was in a field Wilson didn’t use for corralling, judging by the lack of fencing. Even odder, Ryan saw no sign of bovine tracks or crushed grass in any direction. And no footprints to indicate the cow had been led there.
“How did she get here?”
“That’s just it.” Looking puzzled, Wilson scratched his chin. “I haven’t got a clue. I put her in the barn with the others last night. That was the last I saw her until I found her this morning.” He shook his head, remorse filling his eyes as he gazed down on the dead cow. “What do you think happened? All that blood… What could do that to her?”
Ryan hated to speculate. “I’ll call the county veterinarian for large animals.”
“You know what he’s gonna say, don’t you?” Wilson looked up, his eyes bulging, face drawn in the early morning light. “Nothing about it’s natural. It’s like her damn brain exploded.”
Doreen Sue Lynch stubbed her cigarette into an ashtray and craned her neck to glance out the kitchen window. Her grandson, Sam, had promised not to stray. He’d helped her with the dishes after dinner, then begged to go outside with Rex, a friendly mongrel mix of Australian shepherd and retriever. She’d agreed to take her boyfriend’s dog while Martin’s house was being fumigated for spiders, and Sam would stay overnight because Katie was off visiting a friend.