Cutthroat Chicken (6 page)

Where the hooks that held the whole-chickens were lined up there was… had been… some kind of massacre. Some kind of strange ritual. The bodies had been mangled, but in an oddly specific way.

“Voodoo?” His voice was gruff and he could barely manage to raise it above a whisper. “Is this some kind of Satanic ritual?”

Goldie shook her head impatiently. “No. Look closer. Try to see and understand.”

Abe Braun breathed out through his nose as he tried to see what it was that she saw. He tried to understand what she wanted him to know,

Abruptly, he realized the truth. He stepped back with no volition of his own. His flight or fight instinct was set on flight full-force. He shook his head, his face growing ever paler beneath the cover of his fashionably styled beard and the smoke that still streaked his face.

The bodies of the hanging chickens were twisted, mangled, compared to how they had been at the beginning of the round, before the fire. They hung limply from their hooks, their heads gouged and broken, their skulls cracked.

Strangely, that seemed to be the worst of the damage. No other parts of the chickens were as damaged, yet each and every one had head damage.

His mind refused to accept the solution it offered.

“Their brains are gone,” Goldie Locke said, confirming his worst fear. “We are all in grave danger. We must prepare ourselves.”

“Prepare ourselves for what?” Abe Braun’s voice cracked with fear. If they were only now in Goldie Locke’s version of ‘grave danger’, Abe Braun was surer than sure that he didn’t want any part of what was going to happen next.

Sweat beaded on his upper lip and flowed down his temples. He mopped it away with the arm of his expensive shirt. It was ruined anyway. He stared down at it apathetically. Clothes didn’t seem so important, just now. He shook his head, jerking his mind to the unpleasantness that was his present. He felt dazed and a little light-headed. What was it that they had been talking about?

Oh, yes. The chickens. Abe parted his cracked lips and managed to croak out his question. “What
are
we facing here?”

Goldie Locke grabbed his arms, he howled as her hands pressed against the worst of his burns, but she did not move away from him. She stared intently into his eyes. Her will lent energy to his mind and body. He tried to chase the fog out of his mind.

“Think, man!” Goldie Locke shook him slightly. His arm was an agony, under her hand. “What sort of creature would eat the brains of a chicken? What eats brains?”

Abe Braun shook his head. He weaved in place. He wished he could let the exhaustion take over. He shook his head wildly, protests pouring out of his broken lips. “No,” he whimpered. “No. No. It’s not possible.”

“The scope of reality embraces many impossible things,” the woman hissed, her fingers tightening into claws around his arms. The pain made his head light and red spots dance in front of his eyes. “You know what is happening. You know what it is! Say it!”

“Z-z-zombies,” he said, almost weeping now. He slumped. “Zombies,” he whispered.

Goldie Locke stepped away from him. Abe Braun cradled his injured arm to his chest, whimpering softly to himself.

The word was worse than fire. It spread. They were overheard by the others. They caught onto the word and started whispering it until it almost seemed to be a chant. A name for the face of their fear. A face for the enemy that had destroyed them, body and mind.

Zombies. Zombies. Zombies.

Zombies.

“That’s not all,” Goldie Locke said. She reached out to give Abe a little shake, but he stumbled away, clutching his arm tighter to get away from her. She shook her head, staring him right in the eyes, forcing him to know and accept the truth. “
Think
! What kind of zombie would eat that kind of brains?”

Abe Braun gasped for air. The darkness was pounding like a jackhammer against his chest. His arm throbbed with pain. He did not even dare look down at it. He wasn’t sure he could face the damage. Flashes of red light filled his vision every time he closed his eyes.

“Say it,” Goldie Locke commanded.

“Chickens,” he wailed like a madman. “A chicken zombie!”

Everyone fell silent. Arms that had clung to each other fell limply by sides. Heads weaved in exhaustion and disbelief. A united breath whispered through the group.

“What did he say,” someone from the outskirts of the exhausted group queried, his voice piercing the silence. Every head turned towards him. They begged him to ask the questions they couldn’t speak.

“It’s true,” Goldie said, turning her dark gaze onto the others, though one hand still gripped Abe Braun’s arm. “I know it sounds like madness. I know it’s hard to understand. The… creature who is doing this is a zombie chicken by the name of Fred.”

Someone laughed. It cut off abruptly. Was she serious? The expression on her face said that she was serious. She wouldn’t lie to them, not now. Not such a ridiculous lie. It had to be true.

Chicken. Zombie.

Chicken Zombie.

Fred.

It was ridiculous, but it was true. Their world was too shattered not to accept that this could be fact. The creature that stalked them had a face… had a name.

No one could ever have expected the identity of their tormentor. A chicken zombie. Their tormentor, their killer wasn’t even human.

Wasn’t even alive.

“Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you warn us,” Abe Braun demanded, his face regaining some of its color as his rage dragged him out of his depression. “You knew all along! You could have warned us!”

“Why do you think I didn’t tell you? If I had told you that this was the work of a zombie chicken from the beginning, you would have thought that I was crazy! You wouldn’t have listened to a word I said. You would have had security drag me from the lot—you know that’s true! The only way for me to help you was to
not
tell you who was doing this. You had to reach the conclusion on your own. You can see that, can’t you?”

The others nodded reluctantly. Even Abe Braun nodded, his head dropping again as the last spark of energy his fury had lent him drained from his limbs. Why should he not believe in zombies, even zombie chickens? He felt more undead than alive himself.

“What do we do,” someone shouted, her voice laced with panic. “How do we fight him? How can we defeat him? How do we fight a zombie chicken?”

Goldie shook her head slowly, her expression bleak, her eyes dull. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Moans sounded from the group as hope slipped from their reach.

“I don’t know how to defeat him,” Goldie Locke said. How had they not noticed before that she, too was exhausted and broken? Her shirt was blackened where embers had burnt down to the skin. She was not unscathed. She was not some magical hero.

She was one of them, even if her determination was the only thing between them and madness or death.

“It’s not a simple task, trying to defeat Fred,” Goldie Locke said. “As he has proven, he is quite an accomplished adversary. He is wily. He has planned each detail of today’s atrocities down to the Nano byte. We don’t have the upper hand here and he knows it. He has the plan. We need to stick together and fight together, if we want to have a prayer of a chance. We may not be able to defeat him. We can only hope to escape and survive. We have to fight to survive. We have to focus on that. Survival.”

One of the lighting technicians, a tiny woman with huge eyes behind the thick lenses of her glasses, couldn’t take the pressure. She shook her head wildly, throwing her arms out as if she could block Goldie Locke’s words.

The technician hiccupped once, her whole body shaking. She threw her head back, her arms stiffening down at her sides as she opened her mouth. She let out a blood-chilling scream of terror. It sent goose bumps across Abe Baun’s skin.

Before anyone could do anything, the woman had bolted out into the shadows, racing in the direction of the exits. She was lost from sight in the darkness, but the group could still hear the pounding of her sneakers against the floor.

The running sounds ended abruptly. Sneakers squeaked against the floor as the runner slid to a stop.

The air rang with a piercing inhuman shriek of terror and pain, even worse than the first one.

The silence bound them. The group stood together, their backs braced against each other so they could stare into the menacing maw of darkness that surrounded them.

What had happened? Would they ever know?

They pretended that they didn’t know what had happened to their comrade.

A sneaker rolled out of the shadows and into the center of the group. They jumped, shrieking, away from it, staring at it as if it were some kind of poisonous serpent.

The sneaker slid to a stop and tipped over onto its side. It lay there, under horrified gazes. They could not tear their eyes away from it.

The shoe was splattered all over with red. The original white only showed through in a few spots. The rest was completely drowned in sticky redness. The hot, iron-rust scent of blood filled the air. The sneaker was tiny, just like the lighting technician had been. No one thought to question if it could be from anyone else. It was too obvious.

Her last, haunting scream hung in the air, hovering like the blade of a waiting guillotine. It raised the hair on the backs of necks and arms, and tightening scalps. More than one person lost control of their bladders.

The scream cut off and was gone.

Then it was silent.

That was almost worse.

“Together is our only chance,” Goldie Locke said, breaking the hold of the silence. Her voice and expression were sober and serious. “We must be united.”

As Goldie Locke’s voice broke the heavy-laden silence, the rest of the group drew deep breaths of relief. They had not realized that they had stopped breathing, until their lungs were filled again.

The breaths set the worst of the smoke damaged to coughing again.

With the death of their colleague still raw on their nerves, they were ready to listen to Goldie Locke. They wanted a leader. They craved a voice of reason. They would have begged her, if necessary. This time, the group was willing to give the small blond woman’s words the benefit of the doubt.

Most of them, that is. Some still had their reservations. Some were suspicious of this strangely helpful stranger.

“What is your connection with this monster,” Chef Aire-Craft demanded. His arms crossed disapprovingly across his chest. His head was raised high. His nostrils flared. It was obvious that he was trying to be a formidable figure, but there was a sickly sheen to his face. An angry-looking burn slashed across one of his round cheeks, all the way into the hairline on his forehead. The eye on that side was swollen nearly shut.

Chef Aire-Craft had the vaguely stunned look of a person in shock, who was trying to function as usual. Even as he spoke, he began to shiver violently with the effects of shock. He focused his energy on directing his feeble rage at Goldie Locke. “How do you know all of these things? Are you a cohort of him, it… whatever it is? Are you in cahoots with this… thing?” He wrinkled his nose as if even speaking the words ‘zombie chicken’ was beneath him. He could not accept such a foe. How tragic to be attacked by such an ignoble monster. If he was to die, he wanted an acceptable opponent.

Zombies, like vampires, were just too passé.

They’d been done to death.

The crew turned to face Goldie Locke. They needed to hear what she had to say. They, too, wanted answers. They wanted to understand why they were being hunted—why so many had already perished as victims in this bloody massacre. They wanted her to tell them that they would be OK. That escape was possible.

Even that she, not this mythical creature, was the real killer.

“I know him,” Goldie Locke admitted. There was no shame or embarrassment in her expression, just simple honesty. “I’m a kind of warden for creatures like him. I suppose, in a way, this is partly my fault. I should have kept a better eye on him. For him to accomplish something like this… well, it seems impossible. I guess I made the fatal mistake in believing him to be pretty much harmless. He was… cute, comical even.” She gave a little shiver. “That he could do all this… this isn’t the Fred that I recognize. By the time I realized that he was more dangerous I realized, it was too late. I did the best that I could, once I realized that he was going on a rampage. I followed him. Not quickly enough, as it turns out. I tried to head him off. I tried to prevent him from hurting anyone. Instead, I just managed to get myself locked in with the rest of you.” Her face turned thoughtful in a grim sort of way. “In fact, I may be more at risk than any of you. He knows me. He may very well have a vendetta against me. I can’t count on my hands how many times I gave him onions for punishment—zombie chickens hate onions. At least, Fred does.” She shook her head.

“A likely story,” Chef Aire-Craft huffed. “Are we supposed to believe this twaddle? It is ridiculous!”

“Yes, you are supposed to believe me,” Goldie Locke said. “Impressive use of the word ‘twaddle’, by the way. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that outside of a book.”

Her glib words only increased the huff in his chest. He threw back his head so that he could look down at her. He wasn’t a particularly tall man, but this Goldie creature had to stand at five feet, tops. “There is no zombie chicken, is there? This whole thing is just some farce—some serial killer sicko’s game.”

Goldie Locke sighed. “I can’t make you believe me. I am telling the truth, though. I’m not going to honeyfuggle you. I’m not going to lie to you. You can believe what you want, but I promise you,” she stabbed her finger in his direction, “there is a zombie chicken out there. He’s already devoured the brains of all the chickens in the pantry. Now, he’s hunting down your people and killing them. At first it was just one at a time, then there was the fire. It can only escalate from there. The sooner you get that into your head, the sooner we can try to get out of here. It’s not going to be easy. This chicken means business. This isn’t a game to him. He’s serious… deadly serious. He’s out for revenge.”

“Revenge?” Abe Braun’s voice squeaked, which only lent fuel to his fury. “What has anyone here done to deserve vengeance from a zombie chicken?”

“Zombie, no. Chicken, yes,” Goldie Locke said. “It’s pretty simple. Just try to think like a chicken.”

Somebody snorted. Another muttered. “Do chickens even think?”

Goldie Locke shot them a sharp glance and they subsided. She continued, “How many cooking shows do you think are on this network? Just competitions, let’s say. Shows like this one.” She gestured around them at the studio.

Abe Braun raised his eyebrows. He didn’t see the point in responding, but deigned to answer her question anyway. Supposedly she’d get to the point eventually. Hopefully before they were all chicken chow. “There are somewhere around twelve shows of that sort on this network. At least, that is my guess. Why?”

Goldie Locke shook her head. “Twelve competition shows. Try to think about it from his perspective. How many shows have you hosted or seen where chicken has been cooked improperly?”

The words stunned her listeners. Mouths dropped and gaped.

“Twelve shows hosting a constant barrage of raw chicken, inedible chicken, wasted meat… Does any of that sound like grounds for revenge?”

Abe Braun and Chef Aire-Craft leaned away from the fierceness of her expression and the reasonable sounding words.

“Fred isn’t being unreasonable, at least, not in his eyes,” Goldie Locke said, her eyes earnest. “He understands that chickens are eaten. He’s eaten a few himself. He’s OK with that entire industry. What he can’t cope with is all the waste. How many chickens must die just to end up in a garbage can at the end of the day? And why is it that no chef seems to be able to cook chicken properly? How many shows and competitions end with raw chicken at the end of every poultry round?”

Someone made a sound of protest.

Goldie Locke sighed. “I said I can
understand
his frustration. I didn’t say that I agreed with it. This horror though,” she shook her head with an expression of naked repugnance. “This is beyond horrifying. He must be making an example of this show. He wants to make sure everyone understands and will never cook chicken improperly again.”

Abe Braun opened his mouth, but no words came out. He had nothing he could say. He didn’t know how to react to something as unscripted as this. Chickens with thoughts, chickens with feelings, chickens with revenge in their hearts… these were new thoughts. Abe Braun didn’t do new thoughts. He did quips, puns, and educated soliloquy.

Had the waste ever crossed his mind?

Likely not.

That was such a human failing. He was shocked at himself. He was stunned that he could almost see eye-to-eye with this killer. That he could… empathize with such a creature.

Of all the day’s horrors, perhaps that was the most frightening.