by Matt Shaw
Hungry.
B’rok tastes of prey, the head hen repeated. B’rok is our Predator, but B’rok tastes like prey.
B’rok is dangerous. B’rok is small.
Sisters. Let us use our Magic.
Sisters, let us cast the ritual.
*
For the next week, things went on as before. C’ra and R’ak returned to their roles, providing food and water. And of an afternoon, B’rok terrorized the chickens and chased them around their former garden paradise. They knew better than to fight back, and instead fled to their home, only emerging again when C’ra or R’ak took B’rok away.
Over the week, each laid one egg in the Perch rather than the Nest. These eggs were hidden in a small pile of straw. The Gods did not disturb the Perch apart from the Cleans, and this was not due to happen for several days yet. The chickens were restless during this period, uneasy. They possessed only limited awareness, but some part of their animal brains understood that what they were about to do was dangerous.
Forbidden.
Still, on the night of the perfect half moon, under the light of judgement, the chickens placed their eggs on the floor of the Perch. They stood, beaks facing in, and waited for the ritual to take them.
They all moved as one, jabbing forwards and opening the eggs. The yellow and clear fluids poured together in a sticky mass, mingling with the shit and straw and creating a paste.
Again as one, each pecked, piercing the yolks, freeing the yellow fluid to mix and swirl. The head hen moved into the centre and the others formed a triangle, with her as the eye. She scratched and scratched, her feet smearing the fluid, drawing crude shapes and sigils in the paste with her claws. The others just stared, unmoving.
Several minutes passed before the symbols were complete, then the head hen raised her beak. She clucked once. Immediately, the other hens jabbed, opening three wounds in her wings. She flapped, small droplets of blood splashing the walls, until eventually a few drops fell from her wing feathers into the circle she had drawn.
As this happened, she began her song. The other chickens joined in, their voices mixing in disharmony. The sound was chickens, yet unlike any sound a chicken has been heard to make. It was eerie and discordant. It rose in the air, aided by the moon-rays, and wafted in through the brick wall of the house, into the sleeping ears of the Gods.
*
Time inside the ritual had no meaning. The chickens could feel their power rising, feel it mingling, becoming greater than the sum of its parts. They felt the Magic rise from them. Felt it touch the mind of a sleeper, then wrap around it like a snake. Felt the slumbering rise.
The head hen gave her orders, careful not to break the chant. To hold two thoughts in her mind at once was an act of almost impossible difficulty, but hatred was ever a strong motivator. And she did hate, so very much.
Eventually, they heard the door to the Human House open, and they stopped their song. The Magic had taken root. The ritual had served its purpose.
They left the Roost in a flurry of feathers and a scrabble of claws, tumbling down the run in their haste. There, they saw R’ak. His head was glowing faintly with the residue from the Magic. His face was relaxed, eyes open but unseeing. He closed the thick glassed door behind him, gently.
In his arms, he held the sleeping B’rok.
The night air was cold, and it began to stir as R’ak walked over to the door of the hutch. As he reached to open up, the arm supporting B’rok’s head fell away, and it awoke with a start. Immediately, it began to make that sweet noise again, the musical sound that had so pleased the head hen. As the bolt on the hutch was drawn, and the door swung open, she understood in a flash of recognition why the sound was so pleasing to her senses.
It was the sound of cornered prey.
R’ak placed B’rok down indifferently on the floor of the run, plucking one of those small featherless wings off his own as it tried to grasp him. R’ak locked the door and stepped back. The moon lit his face. He was smiling.
B’rok made the sweet noise louder than ever, and began trying to stand. The ground was slippery with shit and spilled water, and B'rok was still groggy from sleep. The chickens' minds responded to the imperative in the sound, and swiftly surrounded B'rok before it could rise.
They pecked. It howled. They pecked some more. It howled again and flailed about, but it was too uncoordinated. Too disoriented.
Too weak.
Their attacks became more insistent, more confident, as each got the taste. The blood and flesh and the sweet, sweet song filled them up and drove them on. Blood mingled with the shit and straw and water. It looked black in the moonlight. R’ak looked without seeing, and smiled on.
Eventually, long after they’d feasted on those delicious, delicate eyes, long after the thrashing had become feeble and ceased altogether, the wonderful noise ceased. But by then the blood frenzy was upon them, and they pecked and pecked and pecked and pecked and pecked.
Bio
Kit Power lives and writes in Milton Keynes, and insists he’s fine with that. His short fiction has appeared in a number of venues, including, Kzine, Splatterpunk Zine, the Widowmakers anthology, The Black Room Manuscripts, At Hells Gate Vol II, and others. His debut novel
GodBomb! was published last year by The Sinister Horror Company. Kit also blogs and occasionally reviews for The Gingernuts of Horror website, where his monthly column 'My Life In Horror' occasionally goes viral, to his utter mystification.
He used to own chickens. He doesn’t any more. His daughter is just fine, thanks for asking.
Places to find Kit and his books online:
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kit-Power/e/B00K6J438K/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Kitpowerwriter/
Twitter: @KitGonzo
email: [email protected]
My Life In Horror: http://www.gingernutsofhorror.com/my-life-in-horror.html
Wicker Baskets
By Kindra Sowder
Little Jesse’s favorite holiday, well one of them, was Easter followed very closely by Halloween. Why? Candy. And because he was an only child he got only the best candy that his parent’s money could buy. He had only expected there to be candy, and maybe a bunny like he had asked for, but he knew more than likely he wouldn’t be getting that this year. He decided that he would settle for a large, hollow milk chocolate bunny. He always ate the ears off first. He wasn’t sure why, but it just seemed right.
He lay in his bed, waiting for his mother to come and tuck him in like she always did. He knew that his parents were in the living room putting together his Easter basket, but she would stop long enough to kiss him on the forehead and attempt to coax him to slumber. Every year they used a clean, white wicker basket and filled the bottom with iridescent Easter grass that you could purchase from Wal-Mart or even the drug store weeks before Easter actually arrived. Jesse’s door creaked open and his mother poked her head inside, a broad smile on her face. Most likely because of the festivities they had planned for tomorrow.
“How’s my little man doing?” she asked as she walked into the room and towards his bed with bare feet. She couldn’t stand to wear socks or shoes in the house. “Are you excited to see what the Easter Bunny brings you tomorrow?”
“Mom, I’m seven, not stupid. There’s no such thing as the Easter Bunny,” Jesse whined at his mother.
Her smile never wavered and she responded, “Now, who told you that?” She sat on the bed and began to tuck the blue comforter in around Jesse’s tiny body, her dark hair falling down around her shoulders as her dark brown eyes met Jesse’s.
“Brandon told me. He said that your mom and dad put all the stuff in the basket at night and you get it when you wake up,” he explained.
His mother cleared her throat. “Well, Brandon was just being mean. There is definitely an Easter Bunny.”
“Can I see him?”
“No,” she shook her head, still smiling, “you have to be asleep when th
e Easter Bunny comes. Kind of like Santa.”
“You mean exactly like Santa?” Jesse asked, skeptical despite his mother’s insistence.
“Exactly.” She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead, tousling his hair playfully. “Now it’s time for you to go to sleep. So the Easter Bunny can come. Maybe you’ll get a bunny this year.”
“You think so?”
“Maybe,” she said with a shrug. She stood up and began to walk to the door, turning halfway between the door and the bed. “Sleep tight, sweetie. I love you.”
“I love you too, Mom.”
With that Jesse’s mom walked out of the room and turned off the light, leaving the door open only a crack so the light from the hallway filtered in. Jesse was afraid of the dark, but refused the night lights his parents bought him so they opted to keep the door cracked open with the light on until he fell asleep. They were always awake later than him so they didn’t mind doing this for their son. Not too long after Jesse’s mother left the room, his eyes closed and he fell asleep, not even aware of what was about to transpire.
*
“Is he asleep?” Jesse’s father asked in a whisper, standing in the hallway with his arms crossed over his chest and leaning against the wall.
Jesse’s mother couldn’t help but think that those blue eyes of his were still just as penetrating as the day they had met. She walked towards him and snaked her arms around his waist, his hands travelling to her lower back to embrace her.
“He wasn’t, but he will be soon. Some kid at school told him there was no Easter Bunny,” she sighed in irritation.
“You know kids. They can be mean. What did you tell him?”
“I told him he’s real and he has to go to sleep or he won’t come, just like Santa. It was all I knew to say.”
“You did the right thing,” he said as his nuzzled his nose into her hair. She always smelled like fresh granny smith apples and he loved it. “We just have to make sure the Easter Bunny comes so he doesn’t think we lied to him.”
She pulled away from him and looked into his eyes, a renewed grin spreading across his lips as she looked up at him. She loved her son so much that she would do anything for him, even make certain that he believed in fairy tales. She pulled away from him and began to walk towards the extremely large master bathroom that you could possibly even fit one of those micro houses inside of it. The floors were a dark ceramic tile and the walls were painted a light mossy green that complimented the floors well, looking sort of like a forest had made its way into the house.
“How is she doing?” she asked as she walked through the threshold and towards the side of the massive garden tub where a large cage was set up for Jesse’s Easter gift.
“She’s doing great, just like I told you she would be,” he said. He followed her into the room and she knelt down in front of the cage, the smile not once leaving her face as she stared down at the adorable animal in front of her.
They had bought Jesse a large, white rabbit with black floppy ears and black circles around bright red eyes. It was the most beautiful rabbit she had ever seen as well as one of the biggest. She had long, white whiskers and her nose never stopped twitching as she sat down in front of the cage and reached out to open the door to let it out to jump around for a little while before sticking her back inside until the morning.
“I kind of want to keep her for myself,” she said as she took the latch in her hand and pulled it up just enough to open the door and let it fall, clanking against the metal.
“And what about the kitten you want? I could always give that to Jesse instead, I guess.” He stood behind her and watched as she reached in and pulled the bunny out of the cage, cradling it against her chest and nuzzling her cheek against the top of its soft head. Her free hand ran over its back, caressing the indulgent, clean fur.
“No, he wants the rabbit. We could always share her.” Jesse’s mother turned to look at her husband. The bunny squirmed in her arms a little bit so she adjusted her and it calmed instantly. “Plus, this is the best gift we have ever gotten him and possibly will ever get him until he gets old enough to hate us and then we’re forced to buy him an overpriced sports car.”
Jesse’s father laughed and nodded in response. “You’re probably right.”
“So,” she said as she lifted the rabbit into the air and looked directly into her eyes, “Jesse gets the bunny until that time comes. Until then we get to enjoy his excitement. Later he can tell us all about how he hates us even though we got him this bunny when he was seven because he wanted it so badly.” She cuddled it to her chest again and kissed the top of its head, petting it as she sat there on floor.
“Sound like a plan,” her husband said as he kneeled down beside her, taking his turn to pet the rabbit before his wife placed it lovingly on the floor so it could hop around for a couple hours before having to place her back in the cage for the night.
They would then take her out again and let her hop her way around the house until Jesse found her and cried with excitement. What was it about a rabbit that caused children to squeal in such a way that scared the Hell out of adults because they thought they got hurt? She would never know. She just wanted her son to be happy. They normally stuck with the hollow milk chocolate rabbit that he would eat, starting at the ears, but they wanted to do more for him this year and he wanted a rabbit so bad he had practically begged. They just couldn’t say no again.
At exactly the same moment the rabbit sniffed her hand, its nose twitching in that adorable way, there was a knock on their front door that could be heard throughout the house.
“I guess I’ll go get that.” Jesse’s father walked out of the room and continued, “Who the Hell would be here this late, anyways?”
He walked through the living room to the front door, taking the silver knob in his hand without looking through the peep hole, just wanting to get this over with. It must be important for them to come this late. It may have only been nearly ten at night, but once Jesse was down they considered it late because of the risk of waking him up and him being up all night because of it. With the other hand he unlocked the deadbolt, opening the door as soon as he heard the click of the mechanism inside the door. The door swung open to welcome the visitor on the other side.
*
Something had woken Jesse up, but he wasn’t sure what that something was. When he opened his eyes it was still dark outside and the light was still on in the hallway and whispers could be heard out in the living room. His parents must have still been awake, making sure everything was perfect for tomorrow since family was coming over to take part in the Easter festivities and his grandparents always brought him something special every Easter. Plus, all of his cousins came over and they got to play. He got out of bed and walked towards his bedroom door, peeking through the crack into the hallway. Maybe he could see something and get a sneak peek of what his parents were giving him for Easter.
“Mom? Dad?” he ventured, opening the door and taking one tentative step out into the hallway just in case he’d get in trouble for being up.
That was when he saw it. A white bunny with black ears and black circles around its eyes was hopping down the hallway in his direction and he knew it had to have been for him. He gasped and ran towards the rabbit, kneeling down just enough to pick up the massive creature and hug it against his chest. It was what he had wanted. Last year they had said that there was no way he could have one because he wasn’t old enough to take care of it, but this year was different. He was a big boy now and could take care of it all by himself. He walked as quickly as he could towards the living room, ready to thank his parents for the gift that they had gotten him and to tell them that he loved it.
“Mommy! Daddy! Thank you for the…”
He stopped in his tracks and froze in place when he took in the sight in the living room. His parents were sitting on the dining room chairs that had been moved to the center of the living room. They were covered in blood and their intestines had s
pilled out of their bellies, unfolding onto the floor around them like raw sausage links. In front of them was the Easter Bunny, sleek white fur covering its body with a pink patch over its belly and ears that stuck straight up in the air, one of them folding over. The Easter Bunny’s hands were covered in blood and, sitting on the floor by his knees, was a white wicker basket filled to the brim with beautifully dyed Easter eggs. The Bunny had been stuffing Jesse’s mother’s belly with them, her empty eyes mirroring those of the Bunny before him. Jesse couldn’t speak. He couldn’t scream.
All he could do was watch as the Bunny turned towards him, raising a finger to signal that he should be silent, placing it over its open and smiling mouth with an egg still in its other hand.
“Ssshhhhh…”
THE END
Bio
Kindra Sowder was born and raised in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA until the age of 12, when her family moved to Spartanburg, SC. She graduated from high school in 2006 with full honors and as a member of her high school Literary Club and the Spanish Honor Society. In January 2014, she graduated with her second degree in Psychology, earning her an AA and BA in the field. She began to write long before this though, forming the basis for the Executioner Trilogy at the age of 15. She got married to her husband Edd Sowder in May 2014 and still lives in Spartanburg, SC where she is basing Burning Willow Press. "Follow the Ashes" has earned her nominations in the following categories: Best YA Author, Best Cover Art (cover art by Lisa Vasquez), and Best Female Indie Author in the IAFC Awards! Her work "Hello, My Name is...: A Miss Hyde Novella Volume 1" was nominated for Book of the Day's 2015 Summer Book Awards Best in Horror Award.
www.ksowderauthor.com
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