"For The Love of Chicken" part 2

[zesty_pinto]

He turned and saw the bird about to peck into his leg and revolted back and ran around the car and then away, the little bird giving hot pursuit both under the car and behind him.

“Okay, I unlocked it!” Mariah opened a window to tell him.

“CLOSE THAT WINDOW!” He was afraid the chicken would follow him into the car and, while there was still three feet of distance between the bird, his hand pulled the latch, opened the door, and took his entire legs inside, slamming the door behind him and saving him from the menace of the dreaded bird.

“That thing is a monster! Our ancestors must have been gods to have eaten such a ferocious creature!” They nodded and stared at the blood-eyed bird as it stared at them. They did not notice the car that immediately came by and ran over it, the hood of the car punching the bird back several feet into the ground as it drove by, the wailing siren of a police car in hot pursuit behind it.

The three peered close to the window, Marty still panting to catch his breath as he stared at the limp bird lying on the road.

“…you think that it’s actually…” he refused to say it. He did not even want to say it, not at all.

“-…dead?” Marty gulped an extra heaping of air, partially to catch his breath, partially to confirm that he was still suffering from the escape.

They waited and continued to stare at the fearsome beast lying still on the road.

One hour later, Josh unlocked the door “I think it’s dead.”

Marty grabbed his arm before his friend could open the door “It could be a trick! You don’t know how sneaky these animals are! That thing could be waiting for us to unsuspectingly open the door and then jump in and kill us all!”

They waited another hour staring at the bird before Marty finally nodded for them to go out, but not before grabbing a tire iron under his chair and stood outside the door of his car in a defensive position.

Josh stalked… step by step… the darkness of the road reflecting against his eyes and the glare of the moon as he carefully treaded towards the lying chicken. He got close, then turned to his friends and they nodded. He reached for a stick with some distance that was nearby and then took some consideration of the size of the stick, but then looked back to the chicken and kept it. His arm reached close and slowly, the stick was almost brushing at the chicken… and quickly poked it.

The others jumped back, Marty got the tire iron out and was ready to smash it with it in defense of his friends in case they were going to die! …but the creature stood still. The three friends looked at each other and nodded. The mighty creature was dead.

They grimly took the chicken, and then dropped it to wipe off the blood on their hands from the dead beast. They tried again, but dropped it again, afraid of the evidence of the blood.

“Do you have anything to clean this blood off with?”

“I have some water,” Josh said.

“Forget the water, I think I’m going to need some bleach!”

He started to sweat profusely as Josh handed him a dark plastic garbage bag and then said “Put it in with this, so you won’t touch it.” Marty nodded and carefully covered the lips of the bag over the limp body… and then quickly pushed it in, grimacing at the terrible sound it made as it slumped into the bottom of the bag, quickly tying the bag behind him.

The body was thrown into the trunk and they began to drive home, still worried about the event at hand.

“You-you don’t think anyone was watching, do you?” Marty kept his eyes on the road as he was driving, but it was easy to see he was still very nervous.

“Of course not!” Mariah tried to laugh, to convince him and, truthfully, herself as well. It was not doing a very good job for either of them, and Josh was still pale with silence that lasted halfway through the trip until they began to reach to the city outskirts when one of them realized something.

“Where do we put the body?” Heads turned towards each other, staring with worried looks.

“My freezer’s broken,” Josh’s voice was a little broken into a sweat as he reached for a packet of gum to chew on; the broken voice would not have been as tell-tale as the chewing, a visible sign among any others that he was truly nervous for once.

Mariah looked at Marty and groaned “If you even think about putting that thing into my fridge…”

He sighed and looked back to the trunk where the carcass was stored. Cooking was obviously a very hard thing.

-

“Police!” They banged at his door at an abrupt four in the morning and the first thing that came to his mind was the garbage bag that was in his freezer.

He didn’t answer the door immediately but instead took the frozen carcass and looked around in haste for a place that would be suitable for him to toss the body in. Visions of rehabilitation camp and the creative thoughts a police officer could have with him ran through his mind quickly in provocative ways where they could find that carcass.

Under the cabinet? Too convenient. Trash? No, they search that first in the dramas. Fridge second. I need to look carefully, but where? When his eyes spotted the closet to his bedroom, he quickly tossed it under a pile of shoes and coats and made sure that it was hidden underneath all the boxes and then looked at it again to rearrange it again to make sure. The door knocked harder and he took a deep breath of air… and then walked slowly to the door and hope for the best.

“Yes?” There were three officers standing outside his door in the hallway, one of them was holding his nightstick that was close to his belt almost as though he was prepared to hurt him.

“Good morning sir, sorry to bother you but may we come in?”

He hesitated a half second before nodding and letting them come in, turning on the light to his living room to take a seat. The three immediately followed suit on the couch.

“Martin Grinwell, we have some questions for you that we would like you to answer for us.”

“Before you ask, would you like some tea?” He needed to calm down, he was acting too stiff before them and that would buy him some time.

“No, no, this won’t take long at all.”

“Oh, but I’m sorry… it’s early and I can’t remember most of the things just from waking up.” Please please please buy it…

“Oh, well in that case, please do so.” They continued to stare at him as he left the room, their eyes burning into them and he knew it. He knew they were looking for the chicken, for his murdered victim for his meal. As long as they did not ask to look around. As long as-

“It’s a nice kitchen you got here,” Marty’s eyes would have popped out if he didn’t stop himself as he saw one of the officers come in.

“-thank you,” Marty blurted back, trying to feign embarrassment.

“I just wanted to ask if you could make another cup, I think I could go for a cup of tea right now.”

“Oh, oh, sure!” He gave his most plastic smile and then turned to get on the drink machine and order some tea with his hurried fingers. It was a few seconds later that a tray with some hot porcelain cups of Earl Grey came to him from the sliding panels of the drink machine. He quickly took it shaking hands and all and walked back, trying to still himself and not make the tray seem too cantankerous with the tremors. He continued to smile the plastic smile.

As he placed the tray onto the table, the officer immediately replied, “I’m sorry, I wanted some sugar with that… is that all right?” Marty gave a still nod, but then he shuddered when the man got up “It’s okay, I’ll get it myself. Where is it?”

“-it’s all right, I’ll get it myself” he almost shouted it. He didn’t want to shout it as he looked at them, and as they looked at him, peacefully, almost… sternly, almost as though they were judging him. He stepped into the kitchen, heaved a deep breath, and then returned with a vessel of sugar “One lump or two?”

“Two please,” he said with a very fake looking smile. He complied droningly and then took to his seat to sip the liquid and hope they wouldn’t search the house, wouldn’t take him over to talk, wouldn’t ask him-“

“As you can assume, mister Grinwell, we’re not here for some social meeting. We’re here to question you about an incident that happened the other night.”

“Oh?” He tried to seem surprised as he said it and tried to remember the looks of shock and surprise the people he saw had as they looked at him when he was doing headjobs where he could take note their expressions. He managed to remember it at one time a long time ago and it was this near-death moment that made him remember this short term past. The images of rehabilitation camp were heavy in the air.

“Yes, it involved your car being in Yosemite Reserve last night.” He said last night almost as though it was something in the past. It was only a few hours ago that he took that dead body of a chicken and stuffed it into a freezer to prevent it from spoiling.

The other officer leaned into the chair a bit; it looked like he was busy trying to repose himself into a more comfortable position “We want to know what happened, Martin.” He yawned.

“What… happened…?”

The other one looked at him shiftily “No need to play stupid, mister Grinwell: we know you were there at the scene in you licensed black Audi Quattro, plate registration and all. Now, tell us.”

The relaxing one was leaning back “We’re not going to hurt you, Martin… we just want the truth about what happened there.”

There was a slight shaking in his hand.

“The… truth…?” He did not want to say… he did not want to say… if they were going to explore his house, then he would, but he was not going to tell them that the chicken’s body was here, HERE! He bent over and started to cough in gagging motion a bit. He was going to be a goner.

“It’s okay, Martin… we know this has probably been your first.”

He shook his head. Even if he was going to be convicted for lying, he was not going to admit it.

“No? You mean you’ve animal deaths before?”

He froze.

“Mister Grinwell, we understand your record shows that you may have a 20% chance of showing callous regard towards this event, but you do not have to fake it for us. It’s obvious that this event must have been traumatic for you. Still, we need you to bear witness for the sake of putting a criminal in jail.”

His eyes shot open and he was still for a moment. Trying to remember how people looked when they felt disgusted, he squinted his eyes and coughed again, looking up to the officers.

“I’m sorry…”

The good cop officer patted him on the back thoughtfully “It’s all right, Martin. We hate to impose on good citizens like yourself, but we need this testimony recorded to help convict a felon.

Martin looked at the good cop, saw his smile behind the helmet, and smiled with a hint of tears on his face and nodded.

-

“That was scary.” The three sat in Marty’s room. Apparently, they all encountered the three policemen and each of them had nearly told a tale they would have regretted. Mariah held a martini in her hand, taking liquor for once in her life just to ease her memories, and even Josh was clutching at some ale in a fisted stein.

“But we made it at least. We still have to cook the thing.”