The Cows From Hell

One of my hobbies is spelunking... exploring underground cave systems.

Some friends and I wanted to explore the Berryton Caves out in Albert County, New Brunswick. The place is infested with bats... about 12,000 of them... so we decided to go there after dark, when all the bats are out flapping around and we'd have the cave to ourselves.

The cave entrance is located in a really weird spot... in order to get to it, you have to drive out into the back country, park your car (or in our case, park the van), climb a fence and cross a fenced-in field full of cows, then cross a stream, climb another fence, then go up a steep wooded hill until you reach a deep sandy pit in the ground. The cave opening is a small hole in the bottom of the treacherously steep, conical sandy pit... it reminds me of an Ant Lion nest, if you know what that is. Once inside, it turns out to be a limestone cave system, running nearly a kilometer deep into the hills and containing dripstone formations, galleries up to twenty meters tall and rooms large enough to hold an average house.

We drove out into the boon-docks. We parked the van. We turned on our flashlights (this is a night mission, remember) and crossed the field full of cows. They started following us. We waded across the stream. The cows followed us. We climbed over the fence and started heading up the wooded hill. Behind us, we heard a series of thuds, moos, and then a crash as the fence went down. We headed uphill faster. The cows chased us faster. The hill is heavily overgrown and wooded. The cows in front were bending the branches aside, and they were slapping back right into the faces of the cows following them. The cows were getting angry. We located the sand pit and climbed down into it.

Angry, cow-like noises were approaching, so we immediately headed inside the cave. We spent two or three hours exploring it, then went back out.

The cows were waiting for us... they were lined up in a complete circle, shoulder to shoulder all around the lip of the sandy pit, looking down at us. The cold air coming out of the cave was causing their breath to steam. Their eyes were glowing red in the beams of our flashlights. They were dripping blood and mucus onto us from all sides, from the facial cuts that they had sustained during the climb up the hill. They were grunting and groaning like zombies.

The cows were angry.

Some of the really angry cows were trying to get down to us... now THIS was really alarming. We were looking up at them out of a hole at the bottom of a steep sandy pit. If a cow fell into the pit, it would plug our exit hole, and we'd never get out. Obviously, we had to do something.

We did... we started laughing.

The whole situation was just comically over-done. It was like being in a really, really bad horror movie. Imagine someone trying to make a horror movie on a budget of about $40.

Eventually, we pulled ourselves together enough to grab some dead wood that had fallen into the pit, and started throwing it at the cows, in an effort to break the encirclement so that we could escape.

This did not improve their disposition.

Successive time-on-target bombardments of a selected stretch of the perimeter finally succeeded in driving a few of the cows back from the lip of the pit. We scrambled up the sandy slope, and started running down the hill.

The cows chased us.

We had to turn off the flashlights, since they were giving away our positions. Now we were running down a steep hill, through the woods, in the dark, chased by a whole herd of angry cows. We were also tripping over things and falling down a lot. Finally, we managed to evade them in the dark, and made our way back to the van.

We were covered in dirt, bat-shit, blood and cow-mucus. But we were alive.

Blue Emu 1, Cows From Hell 0.

Great story, thrilling written, I want to have a movie

Thrilling indeed! Is this a recent experience or did it happen way back? And were those really cows, or.....

It happened back in the early 1980s.

And yes, they were really cows. Bat-shit crazy Cows from Hell, but cows.

The owner allows people to cross the field on the way to the cave, yes. We had spoken to him on a previous (daytime) visit. The Berryton Cave is a fairly well-known site.

This is my other bizarre story:

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/off-topic/my-big-break-in-show-business-and-how-i-broke-it

Mr_Alex_Pims has already read it, though.

That is too weird!!! Greatly written, but I've worked with cows and .. they are so sweet! Why were these cows dearranged? They were female cows?

What general breeds were they?

Our theory... after we had recovered from the experience... was that the only person who ever went into their field at night with a flashlight was the farmer, and he would only do it to feed them or give them a salt lick.

So when the cows saw our lights coming into the field, they thought "Oh, boy... here comes Farmer Dan with some treats for us!"

... and when we walked right past them and climbed the opposite fence, they thought "HEY!!!... stupid humans... WHERE'S OUR TREATS???"

And they followed after us, smashing down the fence in the process.

that is too weird!!! they are unlike any cows I have ever herd of.

xD

I think, ok from my limited dairy milking experience, that they were youngish or super bored milkers and were just being naughty, as I've seen how they act when you leave the wrong gate open, they turn into anarchist 9 year olds. so perhaps they were actually just trying to have fun with you? Unless they were steers or young bulls but I don't know how They would act. This is a super fascinating story for me.

On the other hand, perhaps this was the first step in their evil plan to take over the world?

haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa APRIL FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLS

I think the farmer has trained them!! 😉

Very likely! I'm sure there are other people who have experienced the wrath of these calm-looking violent beasts!

Cow sense isn't common enough. 

it could have been worse

XD