Hens of the Apocalypse

“I won’t be long,” Bill said. He pushed a button on the truck's dash, transferring the phone to the truck’s system, and then tossed the phone onto the seat.

“This is my last farm. It’ll take me longer here, to check their feed logs. We had this farm try a new mixture of scratch infused with antibiotics. I also have maintenance on house four, and then I’ll be headed back to Batesville.”

A feminine voice spoke softly through the truck's speakers: “Okay, baby. I’ll probably start dinner in another hour. Be careful and drive safely. Love you.”

“Love you,” replied Bill as he pushed a button, ending the call. He slowly turned right and pulled onto a narrow gravel road. The road was straight and traveled through dense trees for about a mile until it opened into a large pasture. Hmm, Bill looked around for dogs. Three or four dogs had always followed him down the gravel road before. It seemed odd that none were around. He shrugged and drove through an open green cattle gate.

Ten industrial chicken houses were lined in a row. Each pair of houses shared a gravel driveway leading to a small control room. The walls and roofs were gray aluminum sheets. At five hundred feet long, the houses were an incredible sight to anyone seeing them for the first time. Bill had been there so often he hardly seemed to notice as he drove the truck down the second driveway. If he had bothered to look up, he would have seen that the open pasture was filled with slaughtered cows. Bits and pieces of cow were strewn all across the driveways.

Bill's work truck stopped halfway down the chicken houses in front of the control rooms. He left the truck idling, jumped out, and walked up to house four’s door. He punched a series of numbers into the door’s control pad, a green light flashed twice, and the door popped open. Bill stepped through and went to a small desk against the wall. He grabbed a clipboard, signed his name, and put it back. He retrieved a pair of latex hazard booties along the same wall and slipped them over his shoes.

Bill crossed into the chicken house from the control room and realized instantly that things were amiss. A giant gaping hole had been ripped through the roof, but none of the debris had fallen inside the house. He could drive his truck through the hole. Blood was everywhere. Tiny chicken bodies littered the dirt floor of the house. He walked about twenty feet toward the center of the house when he noticed it. On the ground was a gigantic chicken foot, at least three feet across. Around the stump of the leg oozed what appeared to be coagulated blood. He leaned down to examine it closely. It had a giant nodule behind it. Bill reached for the nodule and recoiled in horror. It was the farmer's half-eaten head. Bill screamed.

Somewhere close, a low guttural caw sounded, then again. Each time, Bill could feel a low vibration. It grew closer, and then the roof bowed and flexed as something had landed on it. Bill ran for the door.

Behind him, a giant fourteen-foot rooster jumped down through the hole. The force of the rooster’s landing knocked Bill off his feet. He screamed at the sight of the massive white rooster. The rooster clicked and clucked its head, and then dashed at Bill. Bill narrowly avoided the bird and managed to dive into the smaller control room. The rooster slammed into the doorway; the impact popped the door completely out of its jamb. Bill screamed as the rooster tried to force its head into the doorway. It cawed as it struggled with its body in the much smaller doorway. And suddenly, it was gone. Bill heard it leap back onto the roof. He panicked and dashed out the door to his still-idling truck. He jumped into the truck and had it in gear before he could close the door. The truck blew dirt and gravel from the back tires as it gained momentum. Bill looked back and up at the roof, but he saw nothing. He rounded the back corner of the house when it struck. The rooster had run down the length of the roof and leaped down on the truck like a predator ambushing its prey. The truck rolled violently from end to end. The windshield shattered, and Bill was violently thrown out. He tried to get up, but he fainted.

Bill regained consciousness a few seconds later and could feel the hot breath of the rooster behind his neck. What is he doing? Maybe the bird wasn't interested in him; he could slip away.

The giant rooster chirped a series of clicks and clucks, and a dozen white mutant hens emerged from the woods.

Bill tried to scream, but his screams were drowned by the hens, delighting in consuming Bill.