MotherClucker

By T.R. Davis

Hey, it happens. Sometimes animals mutate into horrific killing machines that try and take over the world. We've all been there, amiright? 

But when a species regresses back to their prehistoric origins, what will happen once they remember how they've been caged for food since humans hit the scene? They may discover for themselves just how tasty murder can be. 

Join Red and his flock as they wage war and maybe, just maybe, get a little revenge on the human race. The only thing standing in their way are a few puny humans. How hard could it be?

• Language: English
• Publisher: T.R. Davis
• Release date: Jul 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9781777209513

Book preview

Rock On

200-ish million years ago

The comet hurtled through space as it had since almost the beginning of time itself. It was a mass of ice and rock and minerals and frozen gas. It was large enough to not get trapped in any local orbits (local being relative) during its voyage through eternity. A star might make it wobble slightly when it passed close enough, but for the most part the comet traveled unimpeded through a distance measured in light years and a time measured in eras.

Eventually, it burned its way through a small solar system, practically brushing the third planet in that cosmic structure. Its tail threw chunks of ice and rock in every direction as it rocketed past, pulled by the close, local gravity from the planet so near to its orbit.

One of these small pieces of flotsam became a meteorite that plummeted through the atmosphere almost intact. With a boom heard around the world, it landed on a mountain range, causing incredible destruction and starting a forest fire that stretched for hundreds of miles, eventually burning itself out.

For millions of years after that, the meteorite sat encased in its own shell of melted slag rock that had formed when it burned through the atmosphere.

One day, there was a volcanic eruption close enough to this buried rock that it shook loose from its long slumber. The meteorite was blasted clear of the mountain where it had sat for this stage of the planet’s current epoch. The force of the blast was also enough to cleave the meteorite into many pieces. It was cataclysmic, since the rock had within it many unique minerals, liquids, and complex gases never before seen on this planet. The force of the explosion blasted all these things free, to fall or dissipate as their nature dictated.

Soon thereafter, there was seen (by whom we will never know) to be a change in some of the giant lizards that roamed the lands and seas. Some had sprouted feathers and developed wings. These lizards eventually began to use the wings to help them run faster, maintain balance better, and extend the distances they could jump. Generations later, these winged lizards began to fly. They became apex predators, able to swoop down on prey virtually unnoticed until it was far too late. These beasts became carnivorous eating machines, bent on nothing less than feasting on any lizard, fish, or mammal.

Meanwhile, the comet had long since left this tiny solar system in the small, backwater galaxy it belonged to. However, as freewheeling as it was, it still followed an orbit through space.

And someday, it would return...

Back on the Farm

Present Day

I am so sick of feeding chickens every damn day. Donnie held the bucket up so that the stupid, smelly little meat sacks wouldn’t smack their heads against it as they came running. The only thing stupider than chickens were sheep, he sagely thought to himself. A sheep would eat itself to death, walk into traffic, get its head stuck in virtually any opening, or would accidentally fall off any ledge, step, or incline at all. Or it would just fall over.

But chickens were in some ways worse. Worse because they were also vicious little bastards, pecking and worrying at one another until they killed whichever one was the target often for no reason at all. Donnie knew it was true, he had watched them do exactly that.

He grew up on this stupid farm, which was far enough from the stupid town that he couldn’t go and hang out like the other kids, and he had only a few stupid friends. Donnie was eight years old, and he felt that he would never get away from the farm, ever. He aimed a kick at one of the birds, but it scurried out of the way, making him slip a little and spill some of the feed. Stupid, stupid birds.

If Donnie had looked up, he might have seen a star shining slightly brighter than the others. But then, Donnie wasn’t exactly a good representative of the pinnacle of human achievement either. He finished his chores and walked back to the house, his bucket swinging loosely from his fist. The chickens pecked at the ground, the feed, and each other, mindlessly doing what their evolutionary path had decreed.

Later that night, a meteorite blasted the farmhouse to smithereens, and Donnie had fulfilled his feeling that he would never leave the farm. He was immolated into a chicken-free oblivion without even waking up in his bed.

Much like 200 or so million years ago, this meteorite was from the same comet. Earth’s gravity once again was pulling small meteorites away from the tail. But in this case, one struck the bedrock of a nearby cliff and shattered on impact, its structure far more fragile than its predecessor. This time, the surrounding shell of rock was exponentially thinner than the previous meteorite of eons past. The same mix of gasses and minerals were present this time as well, and they quickly dispersed into the general area.

As luck would have it, the chicken coop was situated in a small dell on one side of the farm, and it escaped the blast that destroyed everything else because it was lower than the lands around it. The concussion killed most of the other farm animals of course, but about two dozen egg-laying hens survived, plus a pair of roosters. These animals wandered around the outside range around the coop and into the low-lying gas clouds that were quickly dispersing. Every chicken succumbed to the gas but woke up shortly after, seemingly unaffected and all of them unaware of what had happened.

The next day the boy did not come to feed them, and they subsisted on the feed that was left in the troughs and on the ground outside the coop. They were not hungry quite yet. But the chickens were unsettled from all the noise that had happened previously and they cackled and clucked loudly.

That could have been what drew the fox to them.

The fox was aware of the farm, but his mate had been killed by the farmer and he had a healthy fear of the place. After the loud noises of the night, he could no longer smell the human smell and his hunger and natural inclination told him the chickens had been left unattended. It seemed to be a perfect opportunity to slip in and make a meal. With that, the fox paced outside the coop, tasting the air and being as cautious as he needed to be. The chickens milled about in panic, seeing the danger but helpless to do anything about it.

Finally, after a lot of effort the fox wriggled through the wire, stretching the hole big enough to slip inside. He paused, watching the birds trying desperately (and vainly) to escape the predator in their midst.

If foxes could smile, this one did.

He padded forward and swiped a paw at a chicken. It flopped down and the fox quickly bent to grab it in his salivating mouth. With a twist that completely surprised him, the chicken turned its head, stared directly at the fox and with a lightning strike it pecked him right in the eye.

Kipping in pain, the fox jumped straight up in the air, landing on his feet. He was hurting so much it enraged him, and he sought out the bird that had pecked him, but of course food all looked the same. But his instincts lit up and the fox stopped suddenly, noting that all the chickens had gone completely still, and all were staring at him with glowing eyes.

He felt danger without knowing why and his fur bristled. He backed away, slow step by slow step until he reached the side of the coop where he had entered. He turned to look for the hole and that was when all the birds rushed in, pecking and pulling, their beaks sharper and stronger than that of a normal chicken, their muscles hardened and denser too. The fox yipped and fought and finally started keening as only mortally stricken animals could, but he was doomed. The chickens pulled him apart with their powerful beaks and ate every gobbet they could pull off the carcass.

In mere moments, the fox was no more than some bits of fur and a few larger bones strewn about the coop.

The chickens looked at each other, somehow aware that they had upset the natural order of things. They, as a group, felt powerful, smarter, less fearful. Dimly in their brains they remembered being apex predators, swooping down on helpless animals and devouring everything in their path. Less dimly remembered were the humans that had caged them, that slaughtered them, and then ate them and their unborn young, every single day.

One of them flapped their wings, but flight was still beyond her for now. She had been bred to stay on the ground and undoing that would take some time. She knew that she would eventually take flight once she was stronger. As would the others. She picked a tiny red morsel of flesh from one of her wings, noting the new claws appearing at the wing junctures, similar to a bat, but far more deadly. Her chicken talon was developing nicely.

One by one the chickens hopped through the hole in the wire that the fox had made. They gathered at the bottom of the dell and climbed it together, heading for the farmhouse. They knew where the humans were, and it was time to see if they tasted like the faintly remembered tree creatures their ancestors had eaten. But when they got to the top, nothing was there, the farm was destroyed. Donnie was indeed fortunate, since the blast was a far kinder fate than what he would have suffered from the chickens.

The flock fanned out, looking for any signs of life but found only one cat, which quickly went the same way as the fox. Eventually, they moved on, away from the farm and into the nearby forest. A few miles away from the devastation, they found a stream next to a deadfall and as a group, they decided to rest and drink. The two roosters disappeared into the brush and returned in less than an hour, each bearing a dead rabbit. That was enough to feed the flock for the moment.

One of the chickens squawked and squatted, laying an egg in the warmth of a pile of leaves. The other chickens took up similar positions and while the roosters guarded them, they proceeded to lay their eggs as well.

Well, That Was Interesting

The radio hummed softly in the background of the lab. Rebecca tolerated it because her assistant had asked so nicely, saying it helped him to improve his English. Most of the time that was fine, once she cured him of tuning in to channels that played horrid sounding music (thrash-metal wasn’t her jam in any way). It was really the jingles that were starting to prey on her mind. She didn’t even notice them until later in the day or night or week, she’d realize that she'd been singing one under her breath over and over. Today’s theme was the worst so far.

"You’ll like our chicken fingers,

cause the taste it really lingers.

our nuggets are the best.

Or try our chicken breast!

Try Chiggi's Brand today!"

This awful, inane jingle was capped by a mother feeding her toddler. The toddler’s voice screaming with glee.

We like Chiggi's Chickie!

My Chiggi's Chickie!

It got stuck in her head and took hours to get rid of. What’s worse, there was a billboard on her commute for the company with a bland smiling woman trying to feed a food-covered screaming baby in a highchair. Apparently Chiggi's was some sort of chicken and haggis combination from England. It sounded truly awful.

Rebecca Sing looked at her monitor again. And again. She was missing something.

If you stare at that hard enough, you are going to go blind or break it from sheer intensity. The voice behind Rebecca made her smile as she turned and looked sheepishly over to her grad student intern, Bjergen Bjergenson. He was an exchange student helping out in the astrology department for extra credit, in addition to his own classes in astrophysics.

Thanks Berg, you’re right. She leaned back and sighed. But it makes no sense. No sense at all.

Tell me, which part doesn’t make sense? Bjergen grinned at his mentor and his project manager. Rebecca had chosen him to help map the path of a large comet that had blown through their solar system recently.

No one had anticipated it, and even more strangely, no government agency had commented on it. Rebecca had reached out to the few contacts she had but no one was willing to comment on the comet at all. It was like it didn’t exist, except for the actual physical proof she was seeing from the data she collected and the video feed and of course, actually watching the damn thing shoot across the sky a few nights ago. Not to mention, a small meteorite that had broken off from the comet might have destroyed a farm, killing the family that lived there. It should be big news, but not one newspaper had reported on the meteorite. They just reported an explosion that destroyed the farm, and that it was under investigation."

And that was the crux of it for her, the lack of information seemed intentional, and after a few days there was no mention of it in any paper at all. The comet was reported on, lightly, almost as though it happened all the time. But that was it for coverage.

Rebecca had been manning a small observatory in her spare time and noted the comet months previously. When it passed the closest point to earth, she gathered enough data to predict some debris and potentially some meteors making it through the atmosphere. She believed this actually came to pass but she could not find any government, mainstream media, or social media data to support it. There was nothing except for the farm being destroyed right in the area where she had predicted a meteorite might strike.

The local news had said explosion of unknown origin, but Rebecca was sure it had been blown apart by the falling meteorite. She could feel it in her bones. All she had to do now was to prove it. She turned to Berg and told him, Rent a car. We’re going to that farm. There must be some evidence on the ground that isn’t making the news.

Berg picked up the phone and called a car rental company. He made no particular note of the double-clicking sound on the line when he picked it up, assuming it was simply part of the North American phone system. He booked the car for the next day, excited to take part in some fieldwork with Rebecca, who really knew her stuff.

I’m sorry Miss, you cannot go any further along here. It’s private property and a potential hazard, possibly a crime scene.

It's Doctor, not Miss, actually. Is the farm really a crime scene? I am investigating a possible meteorite strike, and I wanted to confirm a theory I have that the property might have been destroyed by one. She tried to make him understand that she needed to know, but he wasn’t budging.

He shook his head, Even if I believed you, it’s not my call. The AIC told me no one gets in. Sorry Doc. The policeman was polite, but Rebecca knew there was no way he was letting her travel any further down the lonely farm road.

Rebecca put a smile on her face and thanked the officer. Then she walked back to her car. She watched him make a few notes and speak into a radio on his shoulder, then he got back into the police car.

The drive had taken most of a day and both she and Berg were tired. Rather than pointlessly argue further with the cop, they retraced their steps to the nearest town to find a restaurant and a hotel. After they found a pair of rooms, the pair met in the lobby and walked to a small diner on the same block.

Um, Rebecca... Berg started his sentence tentatively.

Yes, Berg? What do you want to eat?

Berg just stared for a moment out the window. Um, when I came to America, I studied a lot of levels of government and the agencies in them. That farm is part of an American County, correct?

She looked at him, amused that she could hear the capitalization in his sentence, Yes, of course it is. Why?

Well, the policeman had a car that looked a bit like that one out there... He pointed out the window, ... but it had the name of the town spelled differently on the door. Plus, the policeman at the farm had a different uniform than that policeman. He gestured at a cop getting out of his cruiser and heading into the diner they were sitting in. I had thought that, according to my studies, that a town police force did not have jurisdiction outside of the town limits. We passed the sign for that on the way here. So why would a town policeman be at the farm, but dressed differently?

Rebecca stared at the man as he entered. Berg was right, the man was in a uniform with a different hue, a lighter blue than the other policeman, and a town cop should not have been way out at the farm.

She quickly slid out of the booth and approached the policeman. He watched her walk toward him with a weather eye, alert but not threatened.

Excuse me Officer, I was wondering if you knew how to get to the Smith Farm. The one that exploded a week or so ago? I’m a scientist working on a part of the case, and I wanted to check out some soil samples. She ad-libbed a little, not technically lying, but certainly not telling the full story.

The policeman stared at her for a long moment, making her fidget just a bit. Well, it’s way out on Old Canyon Road, but you can’t get out there. No one is allowed until the investigation is complete.

Oh, ok, can I speak to the Sheriff about the investigation?

Nope, nothing to speak about honestly. Town isn’t involved, and we ain’t allowed out there either, it’s outside our jurisdiction. He looked upset about that for a moment, then shrugged and nodded to her, dismissing her from his attention.

Frowning, she walked back to the booth. It’s not the town cops out there. It must be either State Police or Feds. But State Police have specific hats and cars and stuff that everyone can recognize, so it must be the Feds.

She said this with a whisper, but Berg immediately asked loudly, Why would the Federal Government be investigating a farm?

She flinched, no one liked saying anything about the Federal Government too loudly in America these days. It got you noticed. It got you looked at a little deeper. Even worse, for scientists, it could affect your funding.

She made a hushing motion with her hands, and then sat back down. She didn’t notice a man one booth over from her suddenly stiffen and then lean back, closer to Rebecca.

Whether it’s the Feds or not, I need to get onto the property. I think I might have to hike out nearby and then sneak through the woods to it. I think you should stay at the hotel since you’re my intern. I don’t think this comes under your job description. She smiled at her assistant.

Berg frowned, It would be wrong for me to allow you to go alone. If you fell or got hurt, no one would know you were there. The map shows it’s a large area, so even if I told someone, they may not find you in time if something bad happened. No, he decided, nodding his head, I shall go too.

Secretly, Rebecca was pleased. She didn’t want to sneak through the woods by herself. She was more of a city girl. They bent over the table, making plans, unaware of the man listening to every word in the next booth.

Lord of the Beasts

Within two days of the meteorite strike, the first of the chicks had hatched. Whatever had enhanced the chicken’s muscles and brains initially had also sped up their reproductive cycles. Instead of the three or four weeks it used to take for a chick to hatch, now it only took less than a week for the first crack to appear in an egg.

The feral hatchlings hunted rodents in the small clearing, the mother hens teaching them how to stalk their prey and work together to trap unwary mice and squirrels using pack tactics. The new chicks also could hop much farther than their elders, even as younglings. Their tiny wings sprouted a claw mid-wing that the birds quickly utilized for clubbing or spearing tiny animals, worms, and large insects.

With a growing flock, the chickens moved deeper into the forest and away from the farm. Traveling as a pack they surprised a small deer. At first the deer simply snorted at the birds nearby, dismissing them. But they quickly surrounded the larger animal, many leaping onto its back. The deer attempted to spring away, but the roosters had hamstrung it before it could jump even once.

Dodging antlers and hooves, the birds quickly opened the animal’s throat and let it bleed out rather than risk getting hit by the thrashings of its death throes. They were