DIRTY BEAST

The Hemming Farm, The West End, Munster, Ireland (1900)….

Intumescent clouds of the darkest gray swirled into view as they loomed rather heavily over the bustling little towns where the people went about their business as if they had not a care in the world. The soggy rolling hills loomed in the distance as far as the hazel eyes of a fourteen year old lad took in the view of the oncoming weather before racing back toward the animal pens where his father kept the three chickens and the three pigs. The lad was quite tall, and lean in terms of body weight. His long dark brown locks came to his shoulders formerly pulled back into a neat ponytail, but returned to a wild state following his work with the more stubborn and unruly animals. He wore a long sleeve shirt with ruffles on the ends of the sleeves and the collar that was dirty from his efforts with the animals and dark brown trousers that seemed to ride up his calves along with black loafers with silver buckles on the top of them.

The lad raced along the farm getting the animals in order despite their stubborness as the rain continued to come down as he attempted to get them all corralled into the pens. It was especially difficult to get the three pigs they had to cooperate as the lad found himself slipping and sliding among the muck and mud while trying to get them to behave. Although he was only fourteen years of age he had the run of he farm and lived mostly alone with the animals doing all the chores and shopping in town while his father, Seamus Hemming went out with the men to hunt seals.

There were numerous times when Seamus would return home with little to no money and then there were times when he made a bit of money and mostly spent it on his booze down at the local pub ignoring his son most days or putting him to work if he owed a debt to anyone while hed been busy getting drunk. The lad had little choice in doing everything as hed been the only remaining member of the Hemming family aside from his father. His mother had only just named him when she died shortly after giving birth and the midwives passed the screaming boy to his dear old dad only for him to want nothing to do with the boy in the beginning.

Seamus was sore about the death of his wife, Fiona McCready-Hemming and had very little to do with the lad whom she had named Ronan Seamus Hemming shortly before taking her last breath. Seamus had not even bothered to acknowledge his son even now that hed been a half grown man and doing most of the house work, cooking, and tending to what remained of the family farm animals that Seamus hadn eaten or sold off to pay his increasingly high debts.

To see Seamus in person was to know misery and bitterness in the flesh. He was a nasty old cuss with narrowed brown eyes and pale skin that turned red due to frequent sunburn. He had short red hair, vibrant in coloration like wildfire, and he wore overalls often and sometimes walked about barefooted despite the many things a person could get stuck in their foot and cause pain or infection. He was supposed to be an accomplished sailor, but was relegated to seal hunting due to the high bounties and the demand for seal parts.

He was also up to his elbows in debt, but often traded his livestock and what little furniture he had to pay it off and it was mostly over drinks.

His only son Ronan by contrast was a handsome young lad with a lean muscular frame due to all the hard work he had to do on his own, he had his late mothers dark brown locks and intriguing hazel eyes despite never getting the chance to actually meet her beyond his birth. Young Ronan was a bright and headstrong lad that often clashed with his father as the drunken brute often caused the boy to have to go many a night with an empty belly due to his folly.

On this particular day, young Ronans father was good and truly drunk and the subject of selling one of the pigs brought forth his fathers immediate wrath and as a result, the lad was struck plainly across the face by the man. Reeling from the enraged attack, Ronan bolted out the back door feeling a bit of rage himself as he headed back toward the animal pens needing to get as far away from the house as possible but wanting so badly to finish his chores so that he could before the rain picked up.

Ronan was still out tending to the animals alone when he heard a rustling in the thick of the bushes where his home had been. He took a few moments to investigate grabbing a nearby pitchfork and approaching the bushes to see what it had been. He was relieved to know that there was nothing there, but neglected to check behind him as someone or something decided to head into the barn.

The sound of a squealing pig had gotten his attention and he rushed into the barn to see what became of the poor creature expecting to see a wolf or a badger only to find a strange thin ragged looking woman with vibrant red hair lengthy and in uneven strands, she wore what looked like an outfit fashioned out of a burlap sack and held in her hands the bloodied intestines of the no