The Influence(85)

He had just flattened on the ground to avoid the clutches of a swooping vulture-like creature when he was awakened by Jill, pushing his shoulder and whispering frantically in his ear. “Wake up! Ross! Wake up!”

Sitting quickly up in bed, he tried to open his eyes, which seemed stuck together. He pulled his eyelids apart. It was dark out, he saw, and he was aware of an odd whistling sound. “Huh?” he mumbled groggily.

“Do you hear that? That whistling? That song?”

He heard the fear in her voice, and that helped wake him up.

“What is it?” she whispered, huddling close.

There was indeed something eerie about the sound, which seemed to be coming not just from outside but through a specific window, the one on the east wall. Getting out of bed, he walked uneasily to the window, hesitating a moment before pulling the curtain aside.

The chickens were lined up in the yard, and they were whistling.

Dave had told him that he and Lita had a hundred chickens on the ranch, and most, if not all of them, were standing next to each other, wing to wing, in rows that stretched back dozens deep, staring at his window and whistling in unison. The sight was not merely unnatural but genuinely frightening, and, instantly, Ross let the curtain drop, his heart pounding.

The whistling continued unabated. It was a tune he thought he’d heard before, though he couldn’t say where, and while thankfully he could not see through the curtains, the image of the perfectly aligned hens remained imprinted on his mind. He could still see their stiff and unmoving necks, their partially open beaks, their eyes glittering in the moonlight.

“What are they doing?” Jill whispered in his ear. She was right behind him, and he could feel her trembling body against his own.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Should we call Dave and Lita?”

He shook his head. “Let them sleep. The chickens aren’t actually doing anything, they’re—”

“They’re whistling!”

“But they’re not causing any harm…”

“Ross, we don’t know what they’re doing. And you saw them. It’s creepy. I can’t get that tune out of my head, either.”

His plan had been to ignore the birds, go back to sleep and hope they would be dispersed by morning. The windows were closed, the door was locked, and they were safe inside the shack. It might be hard to fall asleep again with all of the noise, but even if the chickens remained where they were, they would definitely seem a lot less scary in the light of day. Jill wasn’t about to let him do that, though. So, gathering his courage and casting about for something to throw at the birds, he made his way toward the front door. In the wastebasket, he found a broken surge protector that he’d thrown away two days ago, and he picked it up, letting it dangle by the cord. It wouldn’t do much damage, not to that many chickens, but it would startle them, and maybe that would be enough to get them to stop.

Afraid of being heard, he soundlessly opened the wooden door, then carefully opened the screen and, in bare feet and underwear, stepped out into the chill night air. It was all he could do not to loudly suck in his breath as he encountered the sudden drop in temperature, but he remained quiet as he padded over to the corner of the shack and peeked around the side.

The chickens were not looking at the window.

They were looking at him.

And they were still whistling.

Holding the surge protector by the plug and swinging it once in a circle above his head, he threw the object, letting it fly. It landed in the middle of the flock, and, as though a spell had been broken, the hens scattered, flying up, clucking wildly. Ross breathed a sigh of relief and hurried back inside, closing and locking the door behind him. Jill was already at the window, peeking out, and he moved next to her.

The moon must have gone behind a cloud, because the yard seemed darker, but even in the gloom he could tell that there was something off about many of the birds. Some were huge, some were peculiarly shaped, and some did not look like chickens at all. He knew Jill had to be seeing it, too, but neither of them said anything, and he pulled the curtains shut and walked over to the bed.

“It’s over,” he said. “Let’s get some sleep.”



****



Ross awoke in the morning to the smell of smoke. The windows in the shack were closed, but the burning odor was almost overpowering and made him cough when he breathed in too deeply. Leaping out of bed, his first thought that the Big House was on fire, but when he yanked aside the curtains and looked outside, he saw Lita and Dave standing before a pyre in the yard.

A burning pile of dead chickens.

His coughing and movement had awakened Jill, and, instantly alert, she asked what was going on as they both pulled on their pants.