The halo of light swayed in the night wind, illuminating the workers laboring on both sides of the railway. Shovels dug into the earth, and sleepers were carried into place. Everything proceeded in an orderly fashion.
One of the workers, George, straightened up and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He lowered his voice and asked Old Jack beside him, "It's so late. Is this really going to be all right?"
Old Jack was crouched on the ground, adjusting a sleeper. Without looking up, he said, "Whether it is or not, we still have to work. Let's hurry and finish this stretch so we can knock off sooner."
George knew Old Jack was right, but he couldn't help glancing in another direction.
The uniformed foreman stood smoking beside an oil lamp. He wasn't looking at the workers, but gazing worriedly out toward the wilderness.
Night had swallowed the wilderness on either side of the railbed, making it impossible to see anything clearly. Only the small patches lit by the oil lamps offered a little reassurance.
George looked away and plunged his shovel into the soil.
Ever since the grand duke had ordered the railway project pushed forward, the local lord, Lord Banbury, had taken a particular interest in this line.
If he could be the first to finish laying the railway through his territory, he would undoubtedly earn considerable face before the grand duke. So he had ordered work to continue day and night, with one shift in the daytime and another at night, aiming to finish laying the tracks before the rainy season arrived.
But carrying that out was another matter. A few days earlier, something had happened to a crew working at night.
Twelve men had gone out to lay tracks, and not one had returned the next morning. After the incident was reported, Lord Banbury sent men to investigate, but they found nothing. In the end, it was attributed to an attack by an aberrant, and work was ordered to continue, with only the nighttime watch strengthened.
George naturally didn't know what had happened that night either, but he had heard countless versions of the rumors. Though no survivors had returned, the accounts were vivid, each version stranger and more unsettling than the last.
He tightened his grip on his shovel and dug up a clod of earth. Suddenly, he heard something.
It sounded like something dragging itself through the wild grass. George stopped and looked nervously into the darkness.
There was nothing.
"What is it?" Old Jack noticed something was wrong with him.
"...Nothing." George breathed a sigh of relief and went back to work.
Old Jack lowered his voice. "Don't think too much about it."
George nodded. He knew Old Jack meant well. For people like them, following orders was the only choice, and thinking too much wouldn't help.
But the tension in his heart was not so easily eased.
He was about to resume work when he heard something else, like an animal's cry, coming from the darkness on the other side.
He froze. This time, it wasn't just him; the other workers stopped what they were doing too. No one spoke.
Old Jack jerked his head up and murmured, "...That's a sheep."
George was taken aback. He had never encountered a live sheep. "Why would there be a sheep bleating around here this late at night?"
Old Jack straightened up, leaning on his shovel handle as he looked toward the sound. "I used to work on a livestock farm. I've seen live sheep before. I can't be mistaken."
A worker suddenly cried out and pointed toward the edge of the lamplight. Everyone turned to look.
An animal with thick, curly white fleece all over its body had appeared at the boundary of the oil lamp's light. It stood there motionless.
It was a sheep... probably.
Everyone watched the sheep in silence. It watched them in turn, without the slightest fear, as if it belonged there, as if it were the true master of this land.
The foreman came over from the oil lamp and frowned as he studied the sheep for a while. In the end, he didn't dare approach it himself. "Someone, drive it away!"
Despite several sharp commands, not one worker dared move. No one wanted to be the first to approach that darkness, even if the sheep looked harmless.
At last, Old Jack picked up his shovel and walked over hesitantly.
He stopped at the edge of the light, three or four paces from the sheep, and waved his shovel, making shooing noises.
The sheep stood its ground, unmoved. Old Jack took another two steps forward, bringing his shovel close enough to almost touch it, but the sheep still showed no sign of backing away.
It was far too quiet, so quiet it didn't seem alive. Yet it was clearly breathing, its wool stirring gently in the wind as its horizontal, rectangular pupils watched Old Jack.
Old Jack stared into those pupils, and a thought suddenly occurred to him:
This sheep looks very docile.
He recalled his days working on the livestock farm. Back then, he had fed them and cleaned their pens every day. Now and then, he would reach out and touch their bodies, which felt soft and thick.
It had been a long time since he had touched wool.
Old Jack looked at the sheep, at its fluffy body, and couldn't help reaching out.
"Old Jack!" George shouted from behind him.
But Old Jack's hand had already touched the wool. It felt just as he remembered: soft and thick.
The sheep still didn't move, letting Old Jack stroke it.
Old Jack couldn't help smiling. He withdrew his hand, turned around, and called to his fellow workers, "It's all right. It's just an ordinary sheep. There's no need to be afraid. It's very docile...
"Just like us."
George swallowed. "Old Jack, what you just said sounds..."
He didn't finish, because he saw the sheep behind Old Jack suddenly straighten up and place its front hooves on his shoulders.
Old Jack didn't turn around. He was still smiling as the sheep's head reached over from behind him.
"Baa..."
As it bleated, the sheep's mouth split open at both corners, tearing all the way to the roots of its ears and revealing ghastly white teeth...
It went for Old Jack's head as if about to bite off a clump of grass.
George's eyes widened in horror. He wanted to shout a warning to Old Jack, but his throat felt blocked, and he couldn't make a sound.
Just then.
Bang-
A gunshot tore through the night. The sheep's head exploded, and its headless body swayed on the spot before crashing to the ground.
Blood sprayed across Old Jack's face. He froze, only coming to his senses several seconds later. He let out a scream, fell to the ground, and scrambled forward on his hands and feet, away from the sheep's still-twitching corpse.
George gasped for breath, his heart pounding. He instinctively turned to look toward the foreman, assuming he had fired the shot. After all, the foreman was the only person there who carried a gun.
But what he saw was the foreman's back as he ran away at full speed.
"Tsk, tsk. That was decisive. Weren't you afraid of blowing up the wrong head?"
A voice came from the darkness beyond the reach of the lamplight. It didn't sound like any of his fellow workers. George looked toward it.
He saw a black-haired young man standing at the edge of the light, wearing a work jacket and holding a revolver. A faint wisp of smoke still rose from its barrel.
The young man scanned his surroundings warily, not relaxing just because his shot had hit. He replied, "I've practiced. My aim's decent."
A carriage stood farther behind him in the darkness.