Excerpt – Campbell

Brutus had taken a liking to me, as most animals did, and today it was no different. From the moment I walked out of the office and into the shop area, he was waiting for me, though I didn’t see Daughtry anywhere. “Hey, Brutus boy, what you up to?” I reached down and scratched his head, given my height I didn’t have to reach far. The dog was at chest height for me. “Where’s your

daddy, boy?” I asked him but when Daughtry still didn’t appear, I figured he must have been out and about. What I didn’t expect to see when I went outside was a barrage of chickens swarming

upon me.

Now I wasn’t one to be scared by fowl, I was very much in tune with my handful, but these looked…angry. I tried reasoning with them, man to chicken, but when they started pecking at my legs, I high-tailed it back into the shop

“This is ridiculous,” I said to myself after I caught my breath. I spotted a squirt bottle I knew Daughtry kept filled with water, not sure what he used it for, but I was about to use it as a weapon so I could get to the safety of the house. As soon as I walked out, they converged and I got to dousing the angry fowl.

“What in the world are you doing? Chasing chickens with a squirt bottle?” I heard someone say. I was far too preoccupied with my own safety to turn and see who it was. The flightless fiends started to back off until I mistakenly paused a moment too long. Evidently, it was enough time for them to stage a revolt. A dozen or so beady eyes stared angrily at me, in my head their clucks turned to laughter. These were no normal chickens, these were evil, devil birds. I took off toward the house as that same voice yelled, “If I were you, I’d run faster, boy,” before they broke into a fit of laughter.

“This is so not funny!” I hollered back as the screen door slammed shut behind me. Once I’d caught my breath, I pulled my phone out.

“Mr. McNabb, your chickens are out again. They tried to eat me!” I screamed into the phone. The laughter from the porch increased in velocity and volume. “Still ain’t funny!” I yelled back, fearing I’d have nightmares for days after this. Mr. McNabb’s chicken’s escapades were as famous as Harley’s moonshine around here. “You need to fix your fence once and for all!” I demanded, hanging up before he too could laugh at me. “That boy may be annoying,” the same guy said, “but what we

just saw was funny as hell!”

“Okay,” I said, storming outside. “I don’t know who you are,” I began but when my eyes glimpsed who it was, it shut me up. The memories of this Alabaster Falls resident endlessly bullying me were ones that would never fade.

“Boy, you know damn well who I am,” Norman Lupine said, crowding my personal space, and I cringed, reverting back to that scared high school teen. “And don’t you forget it.”

Before he could to anything more, Daughtry appeared. He glanced from me to Norman then back to me again. “Did you need something, Norman?”

“I just came by to see if the rumors were true, guess I got my answer,” he replied, spitting on the ground beside my foot. “What you doing hiring a sissy girl like him?”