Deadstock tells the story of a young woman struggling with the recent suicide of her father, a farmer, whose entire dairy herd has been forcibly culled at the height of a rural pandemic the previous Spring. She now lives alone on a deserted farm, but is regularly visited by Allen, an American vet (one of thousands of overseas veterinarians imported to help in the slaughter), who reluctantly oversaw the extermination of her father’s cattle.
Myrrah is in the process of emptying the contents of the farmhouse into the barn – a seemingly pointless exercise she undertakes with grim determination. Although Allen is concerned that her grief has left her mentally unbalanced, his love for Myrrah and his ‘adopted’ country means he does all he can to support her; even when she takes a migrant farm work ‘hostage’ after knocking him down one night on a back road. Their ‘prisoner’ is Ondriy: one of thousands of young men from Ukraine, working illegally in England.
As a fearsome storm hits the isolated farm on the eve of May Day (and the Pagan Feast of Beltane), the three become inexorably drawn into a dangerous game, the climax of which will reveal the full horror of Myrrah’s plan to revive the ‘spirit’ of her ravaged land.
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