Randy Schenkel, this issue’s featured author, is currently an eighth-grader at Springton Lake Middle School in Media, Pennsylvania. One of his stories, "The Fast Kid," was chosen to represent his middle school in the 2002 Delaware County Young Authors' Contest. For more of Randy's great fiction, see “Shipwrecked” in this issue and his immensely popular "The Night of the Living Dead" in Issue #1. Also check out this issue’s Featured Author Interview, where Randy talks about writing, nightmares, and being weird. Though rumors persist, he denies all accusations of tomb and coop robbing.

"Chickens"
by Randy Schenkel

Illustrated Dominic Caton

 

Tonight was the night he was going to do it. Tonight was the night Louie Tellebreadie was going to steal the chickens.

Louie was a short, fat, and lazy man with beady eyes and a bald head. He did not know the first thing about farming. The unsuccessful farmer had many things on his farm—dying crops, scrawny sheep, feeble horses—but his chicken coop was empty. Louie had always grown up stealing things to get what he wanted, so he was very untrustworthy. And his neighbor, Frank Repp, had exactly what Louie wanted.

Frank Repp was the most successful farmer around. He was tall and had brown hair. Frank was a kind, honest man, and he loved to farm. He had sturdy horses in his stable, plump sheep, green crops, large, round cattle, and healthy chickens in his chicken coop.

With a thick, brown, leather sack clenched in one hand, Louie slowly climbed the chest-high fence that separated his farm from Frank’s, and silently hopped down onto the ground. The chicken coop was just ahead of him, and he made his way to it. A gentle wind brushed by his face, cool and refreshing, and brought with it the smell of cow and horse manure. The stars glowed faintly above him. Tonight, Louie thought, is the perfect night to pull this off. He tip-toed up the ramp and went into the chicken coop. Some chickens clucked softly as he entered. He grabbed the first three chickens that were near him, placed them gently into the bag, and tip-toed back out of the coop. Then, as silently as he had entered, he walked back toward the fence, climbed it, and left Frank’s barn. He went over to his chicken coop, placed the chickens in, and went into his house.

When he got back in his house, he took off his boots and went straight to his bed. He lay there with a great feeling of triumph; he had successfully stolen yet again. But his triumph soon mixed with another feeling, a darker feeling—the feeling of guilt. Frank’s never done anything to do me wrong, thought Louie. In fact, he even helps me farm. So why did I go and steal from him?

Louie sat there for some time, thinking about this. But then, he remembered he had a bill to pay, and he needed to sell some healthy animals to get the money he needed to pay it off, and the feeling of guilt subsided.

#

The next day, when Louie went out to farm, Frank walked over to him.

“Hey, Louie. If I was you, I’d watch out,” Frank said.

“What? Why?” replied Louie nervously, glancing over at Frank’s chicken coop.

“Three of my chickens are gone. I think there’s a weasel in the area. You seen one lately?” questioned Frank.

“Uh, yeah,” Louie lied. “I’m keepin’ an eye out for him.”

“I’ll kill him, Louie, I’ll see to it.”

Then, Frank walked back over to his barn and continued working. That was close, thought Louie. Frank and Louie finished the day out farming, and then both went back inside at sunset.

That night, Louie went back over to Frank’s chicken coop. He wasn’t going to, but he still needed more chickens to sell if he wanted to pay off the bill. A pale moon glowed, but clouds smothered it, so the light came and went. Louie slowly made his way over to the coop and noticed that the top of the entrance was a tad lower, and very sharp. He crawled forward, and felt a small thread break across his hand while he was ducking his head in. Then, something whistled through the night air. He pulled his head back, saw something flash in front of him, and heard a loud thud. The guillotine had narrowly missed him. He yelled in shock, and ran back to his house, completely clearing the fence with a giant leap. He dove into his bed and went to sleep with second thoughts about stealing chickens in his mind.

The next day, when Frank and Louie were farming again, Frank walked over to Louie again.

“Louie, guess what? I almost caught the weasel last night,” said Frank.

“What did you do?” Louie nervously asked, already knowing the answer.

“I used a guillotine,” replied Frank. “He must be pretty quick, because I didn’t get him” said Frank, and walked back over to his barn, and began working again.

Louie quit work early that day and rested a bit. He thought he would need it to be alert if he wanted to stay alive that night.

#

It was pitch black, with not a light in the sky to guide the way. Louie heard the soft pit-pat of his feet on the ground as he sneaked across the yard. He slowed when he heard chickens clucking in the coop. He walked forward some more. Pit pat, pit pat, tink. As soon as Louie heard the change of sound in his footsteps, something clamped shut together on his right leg, and he fell to the ground. It hurt so badly that he roared with agony. The chickens woke and began to cluck loudly, and the horses in their stables neighed deafeningly. As he looked down at his leg, he saw that a bear trap was embedded in the flesh. He glanced up, and saw that a light turned on in Frank’s house. He bent over, wrenched the trap open, stood up on his good leg, and hobbled as quickly as his leg would carry him over to the fence. He climbed it with his left leg, and limped over to his house and went inside.

Louie sat perfectly still in his house while he watched Frank search the coop with a flash light. He couldn’t find anything but blood on the trap, and some blood that led over to the fence. He finally threw his arms up in the air and went back inside. It took a few seconds when Louis finally reacted. He cleaned the wound as best he could and wrapped it in a bandage. The blood leaked through a bit, but the bleeding did stop. He started thinking that he shouldn’t try stealing any more chickens. But he needed money. Frank would be able to tell instantly if Louie had stolen a horse or sheep or cow, since they were so much larger than his own. So Louie stuck with chickens.

#

The next day, Louie noticed that a big crane was parked next to Frank’s chicken coop. Louie was curious, so he called Frank.

“Frank,” he said, “why do you have a crane outside your house?”

“I’m going to build something with it,” Frank said slowly. “Why aren’t you outside working?” he questioned.

“I’m…not feeling well,” said Louie, and hung up.

Louie relaxed for the rest of the day. Time seemed to stand still at points, as he kept waiting for night to fall. He thought to himself, tonight, I’m stealing more. No one’s going to stop me.

When the night finally came, Louie stealthily staggered over to the chicken coop. He checked to make sure that there were no bear traps or trip wires with his flashlight, and began to slowly crawl into the coop. But as soon as his hand went onto the ramp, a laser, red like blood, appeared. Then, from up above, he heard a creaking noise, and it sounded like something fell through the air. All of a sudden, a cage shaped like a dome with spikes on the bottom fell silently, as if it was padded, upon Louie. The spikes embedded themselves into the ground, and when that happened, little metal tubes projected themselves from all sides of the dome, and a neon-green gas began to fill the dome through the tubes.

The gas stopped coming in through the tubes, and nothing happened to Louie. He began to stand up and try to get out of the cage. Suddenly, he had a horrible feeling. His stomach writhed, his lungs seemed to explode in his chest, and a burning sensation filled his throat. He began to purge. But when it came up, he was horrified at what he was throwing up. His innards were slowly, painfully dropping from his mouth. He saw his liver, intestines, kidneys, everything pouring out of his mouth. He stopped puking. Then, Louie’s eyes drooped, he held his stomach with one hand, the flashlight in the other, and fell to the ground. In moments, painful moments that felt like hours, he closed his eyes. The flashlight fell out of his limp hand and rolled onto the ground.

The next day, Frank came out and found Louie dead. And he only said one thing: “I told you I’d kill it, Louie. I told you I’d kill the weasel.