Chicken of the Night

Mikris Nagata crouched in the bushes outside of KFC and peered through the windows with cobra venom in his pupils. His brows furrowed and his muscles tensed with every chicken wing the patrons stuffed in their jowly mouths. Even through double pane glass, he could hear their lips smacking and their tongues clicking off of their palettes. Obese men and women with their costume-dressed children devouring members of Mikris’s own brethren. The sight made the contents of his own stomach swirl around like toilet water. Why subject this massacre to small children? Wouldn’t the pillow cases full of Butterfingers and Reese’s Pieces have been enough? This wasn’t a fast food establishment; it was a graveyard for the overweight.

Every night Mikris hid out in front of this restaurant, waiting for the perfect time to strike. So many people gathered in one place on Halloween night: the opportunity was handled to the chicken samurai on a silver platter. The chairman of the Dread City Rifle and Revolver Club Steve Coleman was there licking the grease off of his sausage fingers while barely fitting into his booth. The manager of this establishment Bill Shane was behind the counter dishing out members of Mikris’s race at a chippy’s price. So much gnashing on dead chickens. So much sadistic enjoyment. So many large bellies. Mikris’s mind raced at a million miles per hour. He had to strike now or this would be another missed opportunity to avenge his people!

The chicken warrior stood up and unsheathed his double katanas, scraping the blades against each other while his beak clamped down in fury. With one shrill war cry squawk, Mirkis bolted towards the restaurant and crashed through the glass wall shoulder first, earning screams from fat little kids and gasps from their monstrous parents. Shards of glass nicked the parents’ skins, but still they stood in front of their little ones as the KFC clientele backed away at the sight of Mirkis swinging his blades and squawking like hell.

“I don’t go to your hospitals and devour your infants,” whispered Mirkis while accusingly pointing his blades at the patrons. “I don’t go to your graveyards and defile your loved ones. I don’t go to your police stations and military compounds and snack on soldiers. Why then would you disgusting people think it’s okay to munch on my species! Why do you think it’s okay to treat them this way in such horrible farming conditions!”

“Don’t listen to him, guys,” dismissed Steve Coleman with a wave of his meaty paw, still holding a drumstick. “It’s just some hippie faggot in a chicken suit. I’ll bet he also dresses in a cow suit before he hits up the Burger King. Or maybe he’ll dress up like a big ol’ potato and harass the guys who make Freedom Fries at McDonald’s!” The patrons chuckled at Steve’s dialogue.

“I assure you, sir, this is not a Halloween costume. And this is not about liberalism or conservatism. It’s about basic human decency. You can’t lock up a serial killer like Jeffrey Dahmer and then eat members of my clan right in front of me at the same time! Next thing you know, you’re going to start using Military Intelligence to find Jumbo Shrimp and eat those too!” belted Mikris.

A shotgun’s pump-handle echoed throughout the restaurant followed by an authoritative Southern voice shouting, “Hold it right there, goddamn it!” It was Bill Shane, nametag, apron, shotgun, and all. With the double barrels pointed squarely at Mikris, Bill said, “If you think you’re going to ruin Halloween night just so you can spread your hippie-dippie BS, you’ve got another thing coming, mister. Now put down them Jap swords and approach the counter with your fluffy feathers of your head!”

Another gun clicked and it belonged to Steve Coleman, the proud owner of a Desert Eagle Magnum big enough to fit in his frying pan-sized hands. “You’d better listen to him, buddy. You’ve caused enough trouble tonight. Don’t make either of us pull the goddamn trigger!”

Mikris chuckled hard enough to shake his waddle back and forth. “You actually think those tinker toys are going to get you guys out of this mess? Give me a fucking break. If you guys had any balls whatsoever, you’d put down the chicken wings and play army boy overseas! Now that I think about it, you’ve got all the oil you’ll ever need in those deep fryers.”

“You want to joke around, motherfucker?” taunted Bill. “That’s right, keep running your mouth. Keep giving me a reason to shoot your ugly-ass head off. If you think what we do to your so-called brethren is bad, I’m willing to bet these fine folks wouldn’t mind dining on your sorry ass right here tonight! Who’s ready for some chicken tonight?!” The patrons cheered their heads off while waving drumsticks in the air like confederate flags.

“Enough!” shouted Mikris as he grabbed a gigantic father of five, held his blades to the guy’s throat, and used him for a human shield. His children screamed and tugged on Mikris’s legs for him to let go, but the chicken warrior wouldn’t listen. “Lay down your arms or he’s a dead son of a bitch! Don’t make me do it! I’ll fucking do it!” Slowly and surely, Bill Shane and Steve Coleman set their firearms down, kicked them over to Mikris when ordered to do so, and held their hands in the air.

Amidst the crying children and confused parents clutching tightly to them, Steve begged, “For God’s sake, can you at least let the rest of these families go? You don’t need to hold them hostage too!”

“You think these little brats are innocent?!” belted Mikris. “These little cannibals are just as disgusting and lazy as the rest of you! They’re going to grow up to be heartless bastards just like their parents, that is if they live past their twenties!” With a crazed look in his eyes, he scoped around the restaurant at all of the crying patrons and said, “You all want me to die too, don’t you? You proved that much when you pointed those guns at me. Well, if you really want to die at KFC…you’re going to have to do it the old fashioned way by eating your ass off!”

One slash was all it took for Mikris to rip his hostage’s shirt off, revealing a set of man tits and a hairy chest and back. “Dear god, that’s some disgusting shit!” the chicken squirmed. “It almost reminds me of what you guys are eating right now! But you know what? It can’t be any worse than those Kit-Kat bars your children have in their pillow cases.” He traced a finger across the man’s shoulder and parted his body hair, much to the wide-eyed horror of everyone around him. “Well, you know how that saying goes: I’m going to open my mouth, close my eyes, and you’re going to give me a big surprise!”

Mikris’s beak was open wide enough for everyone to see his dangling uvula. Drool ran down his mouth and his closed eyes were watering with anticipation. The hostage yelled, “No!” as the chicken warrior leaned his head down to take a nice big chomp out of human flesh. When he clamped down on the meaty treat, it tasted crispy, greasy, and sweet all at the same time. He chewed slowly and savored the flavor while his hostage sobbed like one of his little girls. Such a heavenly treat. Such a symphony of flavors erupting on his chicken tongue. Mikris swallowed his meal and slowly opened his eyes to admire his violent handiwork.

His eyes were bulging out of their sockets when he saw he had instead taken a bite out of a piece of chicken that Steve Coleman held to his mouth. The children pointed and laughed as the avian samurai trembled in horror. He slowly lowered his blades from his hostage’s throat and stumbled backwards with an expression of fright appropriate for Halloween night.

“How does it taste, chicken man?” asked Steve with a wide grin. “You know what you hippie-dippies always say: don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”

Mikris was going to come back with snappy dialogue, but his beak convulsed so violently that he couldn’t form a sentence. All he could do was cluck nervously while tears poured down his feathered face and children giggled at him with sadistic delight. He could feel his own brethren sloshing around in his gut and making him just as fat and lazy as everyone around him. This was what it meant to dine on his kind. The phrase “you are what you eat” has never before been used in such a cruel way.

Mikris Nagata could feel the murky sewage in his stomach bubbling while his head felt lighter than the feathers on his body. He stumbled around like a drunken zombie struggling for equilibrium. He could feel the boiling sensation in his throat. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs burned like he had swallowed a branding iron. And then, the viscous acid flowed from his beak and drenched Steve Coleman’s MAGA T-shirt and sagging blue jeans.

The children laughed even harder than before, to which Mikris mockingly asked, “You like that?! You fucking like that?! Have some more!” The chicken samurai unleashed a barf storm that covered the entire restaurant and their patrons in sick fluids. A chaotic exodus from KFC saw customers trample over each other, not giving a shit about the small children trick-or-treating that night, just to get the hell away from the foul odor of vomit and shame.

Bill Shane clutched his head in sorrow while his costumers, Steve Coleman included, dashed away from his place of business. There was no way he would pass a health and safety check. His business was sure to get shut down. All he could say to that was, “Why?! I didn’t do anything wrong! All I wanted to do was serve fried chicken!”

Mikris wiped the biological sludge from his eyes and watched Bill pathetically cry over the counter with just a loose grip on the shotgun handle. The chicken warrior weakly waddled over to the manager and yanked the gun out of his hands before pointing it at him with evil intentions. Bill begged, “Please! Don’t shoot me! I’m just a manager! I’ve got a family of my own!”

The chicken warrior locked eyes with the chubby manager and got off on his fear. Mikris pressed the barrel against Bill’s cheek like a hard-on and smiled through the slimy filth on his face. His finger danced across the trigger like a nervous tick. The psychosis in his eyes grew more sadistic and perverse. And then Mirkis broke the shotgun in half across his knee before tossing the weapon to the floor. He placed his wing across the crying Bill’s shoulders and said, “Something tells me your patrons would have thrown up anyways. You’d better get this place cleaned up before the health inspector comes!”

“You’re a hypocrite! You’re a fucking hypocrite!” sobbed Bill with his head in his flabby arms.

“I know I am, Mr. Shane. But I have to admit…it tastes like chicken!”