“Is that what you’re gonna use to get the rat?”
Sam scrunched his eyes at her conspiratorially. “You bet it is! I’m gonna fill his tunnels up with stinky stuff and make him come out so I can shoot him!”
“But what if he doesn’t come out?”
“Oh, he’ll come out, trust me!”
Diane gave Sam a kiss on the cheek. “Well, please be careful. We’re going to excuse ourselves and go start some lunch. Come on, Sally, let’s let Daddy do his thing. To the house!”
Sam looked at his wife with a raised eyebrow as Sally took off running. “Is lunch what I think it is?”
“Yes, fried chicken, but don’t you dare tell her which one! She won’t eat a bite if you do. Tell her it’s store-bought.”
Sam zipped his lip with a nod. He started unrolling the propane torch hoses from his cart. “This shouldn’t take too long.” He patted his gun holster. “As soon as he pops a head out for fresh air, I’ll pop him.”
“Okay. Be careful.” He was nodding, but Diane got the distinct impression that it was perfunctory.
“Nyet Nah! Nyet Nah!” Guinea Pig half flew and half ran up the slope of the chicken yard with the warning. “The rat! It’s here!”
The Colonel squawked loudly, signaling the rest of the hens. “All right, ladies. It’s show time. Form up on me!” With that, he took off running toward the far end of the pen where the roost house sat. Behind him, all the hens followed in a confused gabble of clucks and squawks.
They all rushed into the enclosure and were confronted by not one, but a pair of rats. Huge hulking brutes—relatively speaking, of course—with sharp teeth protruding from pointy faces backed up by dim red eyes that shimmered in the low light of the interior.
“There you are, you murderous, egg-stealing scum! Now you’ll get what’s coming to you!” Colonel Sanders screeched at the top of his lungs. “All right, Hen Brigade! Attack!”
He rushed forward and jumped, spurs out, straight for the eyes of one of the rats. Several of the hens ran toward the other rat which backed into a corner. They pecked at it, then scrambled back, cackling loudly all the while. Feathers flew as wings collided. Water dishes and feed cups became casualties of the milieu. It was fowl carnage of the worst sort as the battle ensued!
Outside, seeing the commotion, Sam shut off the gas he was pumping into the rat tunnel. He unholstered his pistol and made his way to the roost shed. Loud squawks and cackles were coming from inside now, and he even heard a faint hiss. “That must be a danged big rat!” Feathers blew through the open doorway as a fight raged within. He walked faster.
The windows rattled as a loud *boom* echoed from outside. Diane’s heart skipped a beat as fear spiked through her. She forced herself to calm down. Panic doesn’t solve problems, she thought. She wiped her hands, turned the burner off on the skillet of frying chicken on the stove, and then pulled the fire extinguisher from beneath the kitchen sink.
She turned to look at Sally who was frozen in place at the kitchen table. Her eyes were wide as she stared open-mouthed at her mother over the flour coated biscuit in her hand. “Mommy, what was that?”
Diane calmly and firmly told her, “Stay right here! Keep making those biscuits for mommy. I’ll be right back.”
Diane fast walked to the side door of the house which was the quickest way to the chicken yard. She made one quick detour to grab the first aid kit from the hall bathroom before heading outside. When the door was closed, she finally allowed the rising terror to escape her in the form of a questing call of “Saaaaaammmm!!”
She ran toward the chicken yard only to be stopped by a very disheveled Sam rounding the corner of the barn. He was covered in dirt, feathers and some disgustingly jellied clumps of red. “Don’t go back there just yet.”
Diane saw the blood on the side of his face by his ear and started to panic. “What happened!?”
He put an arm through hers and turned her back toward the house. He gently took the fire extinguisher from her and pointed. “Stay calm, and don’t scare the girl.” He pointed to Sally, who had not stayed put, and was standing wide eyed on the porch step.
“Are you okay? Is everything alright?” Diane moved to go look around the corner, but Sam stopped her with a gentle grip.
“I’m fine. It’s all good. No more rat problem, just a bit of clean-up to do, that’s all.”
She looked at him with a suspicious frown. “You’re lying. I want the truth.”
“You can’t handle the truth. And neither can I, right now. Let’s go eat lunch.”
The white rooster tromped back and forth, crowing, and occasionally chasing the smaller of the broodlings around the yard, yelling insults when they came too close to his perch atop the half-fallen roost shed. He stopped when one of the braver of the young chicks approached and crowed a question at him from below. “Mr. Colonel, sir? We were wondering… why don’t you have any tail feathers?”
He ruffled his neck and gave a head tilt in the young rooster’s direction. “Are you making fun of me, boy?” The young rooster squawked and took off across the yard to avoid any impending ‘training’ that might come his way.
Colonel Sanders cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose the story does bear repeating!”
The chicken equivalent of groans sounded from around the yard as he began his story from atop the mostly destroyed coop.
“So, there we were, facing the worst threat to ever cross our boundaries. Into our very home this threat had come, stealing the nest-eggs of our future generations and taking the lives of our defenders. They were fierce and horrible, but with the distraction techniques I had instilled into our fine female brigadiers, I was able to put the rats on the defensive! I spurred at them. I flapped their very faces as I avoided the razor-sharp teeth, driving them back… back… back toward the gaping hole of hell from whence they had arrived.
“Then, as I flew forward for one last killing blow, the cowardly allies who had previously abandoned us suddenly caused a two-fold disaster when they unceremoniously joined the battle I had already won!”
The rooster flapped his wings wide, scattering feathers and scaring the smaller chicks, causing them to run under the wings of their mother hens.
“First there was a sound of thunder from a stick in the hand of the human ally—if you can call them allies, the egg-thieving… but that’s neither here nor there—the stick made so much noise that all the hens distracting the rats ran screaming from the shed! Then the human did it again just as the rats surged toward me. I was about to take them both out… one with each outstretched talon as I flew through the air, when the world itself erupted in flame and anger. My wings were blasted nearly off as I was thrown against the roof of this very coop!” His foot stomped the twisted tin for emphasis. “I took such a blow to the head that I don’t even remember how, in my rage and addled state, I managed to shred the enemy into just so many gobbets of meat!”
He fluffed his neck ruff once more for effect. “And that, my young featherlings, is how I saved the entire flock on the Day of Rats and Fire! Alas, my poor tail-feathers may never recover, but it is a sacrifice that I would willingly give again so that you may live in peace!”
Sally walked in front of her Dad toward the chicken pen, swinging her bucket of mealworms. “Daddy, are we going to tear down that old roost house that you blew up, now that we built the new one?”
“Naw, sweetie, we’ll leave it there for now. Some of the biddies still like to hatch their eggs out in there. Besides, I don’t know what ole Colonel Sanders would do without his podium.”
“He sure does like to crow a lot,” Sally said with a lilt of disapproval.
“Yeah, but the chicks like it!” He tickled her and she squealed, running ahead as the chickens started running toward her and her bucket.
Even the Colonel jumped down and ran to meet her. Poor allies or not, Sally had mealworms!
The End
About the Author
J. D. Beckwith—
a mechanical engineer with delusions of writing grandeur. He writes, reads, plays tabletop & RPG games, grows tomatoes, herds cats, and hides out in the woods of Northwest Georgia.
eConscience Beta (a Sci-Fi/ Technothriller/ Comedy) was his first novel.
Horizons Unlimited: Volume 1 is the first in his space adventure anthology series with stories about man’s expansion into the solar system through matter conversion technology.
He has been published in several anthologies and flash fiction collections of various genres. See them all at his Amazon Author Page.
Or at his blog: Words from the Wampuscat @ https://wampuscatenterprises.com/
Home Improvements
Karina Fabian
Home Improvements
Karina Fabian
You get all kinds in the private investigations business—especially when you are a dragon with a holy mage for a partner—but getting hired by a tuxedo-wearing grasshopper to recover his flying house has got to be a record.
It got better.
“I know exactly who took it,” Jiminy snarled as he gnawed on mint leaves my partner, Sister Grace, offered him. “Baba Yaga.”
“Baba Yaga?” Grace asked.
I used my arms to compare the relative girth of the witch with that of our new client. “Riiiight.”
You wouldn't think a bug could roll his eyes. “Not to live in! To reverse engineer! She wants to do some home improvements.”
“All the spinning making her seasick?” I asked.
Baba Yaga, the Russian witch of Mundane legend and Faerie reality, owned the original mobile home: a monstrous shack with no windows and one back door, which moved on dancing chicken legs. Unlike Western witches, she used her broom for sweeping and flew about in an oversized herbalist's mortar, with the pestle for steering. Practical woman.
He nodded. “Her mortar's so old, the bowl's cracked, and the pestle's held together with spit and duct tape. She wants to adapt my technology to them and the house.”
Grace cocked one fine brow. Wish dragons could do that. “Your technology?”
“Sister, if I had magic to spare, would I stay in this form?”
“Why are you in that form?” I asked. The last time we'd seen pixies shaped as locusts was when they'd tried to start a tribal war in our town. Sounds trivial, until you get a half million raging insects. Grace had worked a major prayer spell that sent them all to Ancient Egypt. Ironic, yeah; God's got a sense of humor.
“I got drafted. I was trying to exfiltrate back through the portal when there was this gust and a brilliant light, and I woke up on the north side of the Caspian Sea.”
“Exfiltrate? You mean go AWOL.”
He showed us his leg tattoo: Make Magic, Not War. “I'm a conscientious objector. Got a problem with that, dragon?”
“Nope.” Probably saved him from being squished by some disgusted Egyptian.
“I couldn't change form. Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to look like a household pest? That house was more than my home; it was my defense, my means of travel and my shot at earning some real bucks so I could find a way to remove whatever curse is keeping me stuck an oversized grasshopper.”
“So, how'd you get here?” I asked.
Jiminy huffed. “Hitched a ride. Geese, ducks, swallows.”
“Really? And what is the approximate air velocity—”
Grace stepped on my tail then leaned forward. “We'll see what we can do. I'm sure we can work something out.”
“You're not going to ask Baba Yaga about it?” He dropped the leaf he was munching. She ages a year every time someone asks a question. Makes her cranky, vengeance-and-curses angry.
Grace smiled reassuringly. “Don't worry. We know what we're doing. Where can we find you?”
He looked embarrassed. Quite a range of emotion for suborder Caelifera. “Actually, I saw a patch of grass outside… ?”
“Of course.” He settled onto Grace's open palm, and she took him out. When she returned, she swept up the leaves to rinse off and dry before grinding them with her own mortar and pestle with some rosehips for tea.
“He's hiding something,” she said as she spread them onto a paper towel.
“Don't they all? What's he going to pay us?”
She looked at the leaves. “Vern, his people died by the thousands. From my spell.”
“By God's hand. You were His conduit.”
“If we'd just stopped the war in time… ”
I knew that tone. This was a Penance freebie. I hate Penance.
Two days later, I was soaring above the Turya River in the Faerie Urals, where our sources last placed Baba Yaga's abode. I spotted the house, soaking its aging feet in the cool waters; it did look in need of orthopedic shoes and support hose. Considering its relaxed posture, I assumed Baba Yaga was out, so I settled upstream and helped myself to a drink, enjoying the unique taste of the higher cinnabar content. Lots of minerals in the Turya.
A few minutes later, I heard the howl of the wind in the forest, the crash of something hitting a tree, Russian swearing, then wind again. Baba Yaga flew into view.
The house came to reluctant attention.
Jiminy hadn't lied. The pestle was held together with duct tape. The front of the mortar was splattered with the remains of bugs and one unfortunate cuckoo bird. Must have clocked that bird good.
Baba herself wore a motorcycle helmet with a full visor, which didn't stop me from seeing the exasperated look on her face. She landed outside her house and got out. The patches on her leather jacket read “Born to Bespell” and an even better pun in Russian. In the mortar, I saw one of those video-game seats with the iPod attachment. She'd added a seat cover of large wooden beads. Someone shopped on Interdimensional eBay.
She cackled at me; they all did when they first saw a dragon the size of a pony. She pointed and waggled her finger. “I can fix that, but it will cost you.” She cackled again, like dry twigs snapping under a rockslide.
“That's not why I'm here, and you know it. Look, we can spend the day playing Twenty Questions, or I can lay out my client's accusations and let you explain your side. It'd save you from aging two decades and me from feeling like I have.”
The laughter stopped. “Fine. It's about the house, I'm sure. What did the pixie tell you? Wait… Did you feed my pets?”
That's how most people got the better of her: by bribing her pets. I gave her my best baleful glare.
“All right then.” She groaned as she crouched down. She looked as old as her house. People must have been pestering her with questions lately. I told her to wait and retrieved her seat from the mortar.
She paused, surprised. Guess people always remember to be nice to her pets and servants, but no one thinks to show kindness to her.
“Perhaps,” she started as she lowered herself into her comfortable seat, “I shall ask you questions instead. Such as, did he mention that he came to me for help and has been in my employ these past ten years?”
“You stole her ideas?” Grace glared at the grasshopper on our car's dashboard.
I'd gotten home an hour ago, made some phone calls, then told Grace to gather Jiminy for a trip downtown, to the offices of Aaron Percival, Attorney At Law.
Jiminy screeched, “The lying hag!”
“Shaddup,” I told him. “She told a more convincing story than you. A pixie in grasshopper form, without magic, building a flying house on his own? You didn't think we fell for that?”
“I'm a capable guy!”
“Hope you're capable of a better story than that.”
Percival's office looked like what you'd expect from a lawyer fresh out of college—too many textbooks and not enough client files. Percival himself still hadn't grown into his expensive sports coat and tie, literally or figuratively. Late bloomer, complete with zits. I saw why he'd chosen contract law. A jury would take one look at him and doubt he had a license to drive much less practice law. And here I was, offering him the break of a lifetime—a case for the his
tory books.
Don't you love me?
Despite his youth, our spunky new lawyer showed a quick mind and a certain charm. He rose, pulled out Grace's chair, snatched a plant off his file cabinet, and set it on the desk for Jiminy. I peeked at his computer screen—Baba Yaga's dossier and the entry on verbal contracts from Ye Fool's Guide to Faerie Law.
He sat down, opened a new file, and then turned to Jiminy. “I'd like to start with your real name,” he said.
Oh, yeah. I chose well.
Jiminy blinked. “It's Dung, Byatledung, to be exact. Mundanes seemed to respond to Jiminy better.”
Aaron didn’t laugh. “A pleasure to meet you, Dung. I understand from Vern you want your house back. I can help you, but I need the truth from you first—from true names to what really transpired with Baba Yaga.”
Dung fiddled with a bare stem. “Like I told Vern and Sister Grace, I was trying to escape this pointless war my tribesmen had started. I'm an engineer, not a warrior! I don't understand how, but I ended up in the North Caspian, without magic and stuck in this form, with Baba Yaga's house scratching in the dirt to get me. Terrifying! Fortunately, the movement was making Baba Yaga motion sick, so she took me in. We got to talking about the house; I explained my situation, and…”
I'll spare you the sob story. In the end, they formed a partnership: Dung would have free rein of the house and access to all of Baba Yaga's magic and knowledge—and she's a savvy old lady to have kept her house and mortar running as long as she had. In return, he'd help her reinvent her home. In the end, however, the changes he'd built into his model had been too intrusive. The propellers she could handle, but the pipes and gauges outside the house? Obviously, Dung didn't take into account Russian winters. Plus the windows, the pink and blue décor… not her, though she liked the decorative studwork.
CRACKED: An Anthology of Eggsellent Chicken Stories Page 26
