The Bovine Trilogy: Ascent of the Bovine

Chapter I

      Chapter I

      Science is a wonderful thing. It teaches us about our surroundings, and allows us to live more comfortably. It is through science that we have realized a great truth: evolution. Evolution, that some creatures are more fit than others and that is why they will live more comfortably and will triumph over other creatures. We, as humans, believe that we are the most naturally gifted, that we have evolved above all others. Little did we know, this was entirely false.

      You see, there was another race, one that finally presented itself as an equal contender. This was a race that we had subjugated for years. Yet, for whatever reason, a great ascension of this creature began in the small town of Brownsville, Texas in late June of one fateful year…

      It was a quiet evening. The sun was just beginning to kiss the brow of the horizon, and the edge of the sky was set alight with flaring pink, orange and red. It was a beautiful sight for anyone, but for the creatures of that town it was not. The cows rested uneasily, silently chewing their cud as they did every day. But today was different. Oh, was it different…

      For today was the promised day, upon which a great hope was bestowed. Three weeks ago, on that day, a bull had visited the town. It had slipped quietly inside the gates of the largest pasture, and met with another of its kind. The meeting was joyous, for these cows had experienced great joy with each other for several months. There was much necking, grunting and huffing as these cows did the dirty deed, and when it was over, the pair lay together on the grass, watching as the sun slowly set. They enjoyed life so much, neither of them was quite prepared for the information about to be told.

      “Ken…”

      “Yes, my darling?”

      “There’s something I want to tell you.”

      She sounded hesitant, yet he could tell by the tone of her voice that what she had to say was important. He maneuvered himself into a good position, and kissed her neck lightly.

      “What is it, my dear?”

      “I’m…I’m…” he could tell she was having a hard time coming clean.

      He pushed ahead. “Gloria…we need to be honest with each other. We can’t expect to keep up a meaningful relationship unless we can tell each other absolutely anything, no matter what it means.”

      “I know…it’s just that…I’m…pregnant.”

      He had been expecting something big, but not this. “Gloria…that’s wonderful!” she was relieved, and he could tell. The two rejoiced, eagerly discussing the matter, until Ken remembered what he had to say.

      “My darling, I have a confession as well. With this news, it is even harder to deliver. However, it must come out.“

      She stared at him. He could hardly have bigger news than she did, but she was beginning to wonder, by the tone of his voice, it didn’t sound good.

      “What is it?”

      “For the past several weeks, I have been planning. It seems to me that we, the Bovine, are subjugated. It is true that we are given space, food, and mates. But we’re kept within boundaries that we do not define. We’re given food that we do not choose. We have to act! The Bovine from my pasture have all agreed, and we‘ve all come to a conclusion. The Bovine shall revolt!”

      She was shocked. “But, Ken…”

      “Honey, I know this is big. But look around you! Everything we do is done to help out the humans. We can live on our own, we don’t need the humans!”

      She knew this would be dangerous, and thought of the miniature life forming inside of her. Then she looked back at Ken. He was handsome, strong, and confident. And she loved him so much. Slowly, she swallowed her doubts and kissed Ken on the cheek, a signature of silent approval.

      Quietly, the two cows bid farewell not too long after, and Ken promised he would be back in three weeks. He slipped out of the pasture wondering if he was doing the right thing, and reassured himself firmly, thinking of his future son…

      And so it was that the night had come. The word had spread quietly but quickly like a poison from cow to cow, heart to heart and udder to udder. The cows were excited, but could do little by themselves.

      However, they had been preparing. Two guns had been stolen by the cows, from different masters on the nights they came home stinking drunk and had been hidden deep in the hay that made the cow named Erika’s food, for she had the most food of any cow. She was very pretty, as far as cows go, and seemed to make the master more relaxed when he was stressed. But her heart was as cold and tough as the next cow. Behind her soft coat lay a fiery core that burned with hatred for her condition and yearned for a better life.

      So the night of the revolution, she had snuck away after being fed and hidden behind the barn. The rifle was loaded, ready to go within the fake hands designed by Dr. Moosalot, the most scientifically inclined of the cows. On the other side of the barn, Garth sat, aiming the rifle in a similar fashion at the house.

      Meanwhile, a cow clad in black stained with blood made its way towards the town, hiding behind bushes and what trees it could find. He made his way towards the town as only a deadly Bovine could. He stopped just outside the bar that made one of the town’s corners. He went over the plans again in his head, and waited for his first move.
         
      Inside the corner street bar, several humans sat about, sipping at their drinks and socializing with the other humans. Tom, a middle-aged man among them, had chosen a double scotch as his drink, and was nearly finished when he began glancing around him to see if he could find Melissa. Melissa was, quite frankly, the hottest girl he had ever seen. About 19, she was blond, short, nicely curved, and possessed large breasts that seemed to keep most men staring for minutes. He turned his head as she entered the bar, and smiled. She spotted him and began walking over toward him, swaying those alluring hips of hers as she walked, and got him out of his chair. Quietly, the two hurried out the back door of the bar, where they proceeded to remove articles of clothing while kissing passionately. As he removed her bra, Tom thought briefly of his wife, hesitating. Then, he looked at the spectacular sight in front of him, forgot about her, and carried on.

      Twenty feet away, Ken watched silently as the two humans carried on with their strange methods of fornication. He motioned to another Bovine elite, Welsh, and the two hurried forward quickly, their feet padded with black cloth. They came up quickly on the pair, and pulled them away from each other, clasping their mechanical hands over their mouths and injecting poison from hypodermic needles into their necks. They slumped to the ground, spasming slightly as the world faded to black.

      The two motioned for others to join them, and a whole herd of cows, aided by padding for their hooves, made quietly into the town. Some of them staked out the perimeters of the town with guns, while others waited quietly on the edge. It was then that the cows began the early stages of their plan. The Bovines who didn’t have guns made their way to the center of Main Street. Several other cows came out from the pastures and joined them, letting out a chorus of mooing, singing loud their song of revolution.

      “We’ve long been subjugated, we have been long oppressed. Our minds and hearts were stolen, like the milk from our breasts. Today the winds of fury blow upon your filthy huts. The time of Bovine rule is now upon us, come out and we’ll show you how.”

      Everybody in Brownsville knew Scott. Scott was the local drunk, and probably insane to boot. He was always hanging around the bar, telling anybody who was drunk enough to listen all sorts of crazy stories. Tonight, his particular fancy was on Aliens.

      “They kidnapped my dog and they’ll kidnap you, too! I’m telling you,” He paused as he took another swig of his beer, “They’re out there. They’ve got these big ships, see, and they’re gonna turn our own creatures against us.”

      A groan escaped from the lips of those around him. He always managed to tie whatever crazy conspiracy theory he was spouting to the revolution of domesticated animals.

      “For Christ’s sake, Scott! Would you let it go?! The animals are not going to revolt!”

      It was just then, by chance, that the noisiest ruckus the humans had ever heard began coming through the walls outside.

      All the humans slowly walked out of the bar. As they did, they saw several others walking out of random businesses on the street. The cows stretched from the middle of Main Street all the way down to Warm Springs Street. As a big, brown, black and white mass they stood together, singing their songs of revolution. To the humans, this was all it sounded like:

      “Moo moo moo, moo moo moo moo moo, moo moo (poot),” and so on.

      Scott began laughing out loud as the cows finished their chorus of moos.

      “Boy, I told ya! I told you all, and now it’s finally happening!” Smiling and laughing, Scott put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. “What did I tell you! There--”

      He was cut short as a shot rang out through the street and caught him in the jugular vein.

      The rest of the humans would have been confused and panicking, but just then something happened that confused them and made them panic.

      The cows began to stampede.

      The humans screamed as they were trampled mercilessly, at first by the pounding multitudes of cow hooves, and then later by each other as they panicked and tried to get away into the safety of their houses.

      The carnage that ensued was the bloodiest anybody had ever imagined. Gertrude, a small child, died screaming as she was swept into the current of the moving body of cows and trampled on with large, black hooves. The largest of the bulls, Harold, was an icon of bloody destruction as he head butted a forty year old man, impaling him on his horns. The humans were scrambling over each other, trying desperately to escape to the relative safety of their houses. Human after human was gutted, trampled or bitten until all that was left was a bloody mess. Near the end, Ken limped out of the battle tendering a leg that a human had fallen on. He stared out over the bloody sea and saw not the defeat of civility, not the destruction of life, but the dawn of a new hope as it was squeezed out of the human form…

      As the cows pushed the humans into a smaller and smaller circle, they began to panic. One man, David, climbed over his neighbor, Ben, to get out and pushed him down to the ground. The last thing the man knew was betrayal. The man who pushed him down fell as his support did and landed on top of a full-grown bull. He screamed as he was hurled off and landed against a wall. Because his head was bleeding, the cows mistook him for being dead as consciousness left his body.

      Back inside the circle, the humans threw themselves against the Bovines in one last act of desperate terror. One of them, JP came suddenly upon the bull Harold, snorting as he tore the gut out of a man. Screaming in terror, he turned around to see another human go down. He knew her as CJ, one of his best friends. The last sound he made was a scream as he was impaled upon the beast’s horns and pain washed through his body like a flood.

      As the last of the humans were trampled and torn from their mortal bodies, David awoke against the wall where he had been thrown. Bloodshed greeted his eyes, and one of the closest bodies to him was a young lady from the out-of-town college who he had never learned the name of. His heart went out to her, although he had never met her, and he suddenly remembered his betrayal of his neighbor, Ben. Bleeding and beginning to cry, he quietly slipped away as the cow’s attack subsided.

      Only a small percentage of the humans survived, and they were horribly demoralized and frightened.

      …Just as the Bovines had planned.

      The humans, however, still had time. One of them, a man who went by the name of Micah, ran quickly up his stairs. He ran into his attic, dusted off an old box, and headed to the window. He threw it open, took careful aim at one of the cows, and died instantly as a bullet tore through his forehead. Erika had taken her first shot.

      Across the way, several humans jumped as they watched Micah slump over and fall out of the window to the vicious Bovines below. Shock, both physical and mental took hold of them, and they cried, huddled together as hope drained from their hearts. But one of them was cold enough to stay in a clear presence of mind. His name was Steven Fallagon, a veteran of the war in Vietnam. He had seen more than the rest of these people had, and at that moment he was putting together an assessment of the situation, building up a plan of action as he tendered a sprained shoulder.

      Outside, the cows rejoiced, dancing as well as their hulking bodies permitted and feeling merry. They were ecstatic, finally they were fighting under the banner of freedom! Several speeches were made, praising the brave warfare of the Bovines that day and reminding them that tomorrow they had more fighting ahead of them. But one of them was intelligent enough to stay in a clear presence of mind. He was Ken, leader of the Bovines, and he knew that as they rejoiced the humans were reorganizing inside of houses and buildings. He was running through an assessment of the situation in his head, and slowly building up his plan…