Our Children's Children

29

A sound brought Elmer Ellis out of a sound sleep, sitting up in bed, befuddled, unable for a moment to orient himself. On the night table beside the bed, the clock was ticking loudly and beside him his wife, Mary, was levering herself up on her elbows.

Her sleepy voice asked, "What is it, Elmer?"

"Something's at the chickens," he said, for now the reason for his waking came churning up into his consciousness.

The sound came again, the frightened, flapping, squawking of the chickens. He threw the covers back and his feet hit the cold floor so hard it hurt.

He groped for his trousers, found them, got his legs into them, pulled them up, slid his feet into his shoes, did not stop to tie the laces. The squawking still went on.

"Where is Tige?" asked Mary.

"Damn dog," he growled. "He's off chasing possum."

He charged out the bedroom door and into the kitchen. Groping, he found the shotgun, lifted it down off the pegs. From the game bag that hung beneath the pegs, he got a handful of shells, jammed them in a pocket, found two more and thrust them into the chambers of the double barrel.

Bare feet pattered toward him. "Here's the flashlight, Elmer. You can't see a thing without it."

She thrust it at him and he took it.

It was pitch black outside and he switched on the light to see his way down the porch steps. The squawking in the henhouse continued and there was no sign of Tige. Although it was strange. In a flare of anger, he had said the dog was out hunting possum and that couldn't be true. Tige never went out hunting on his own. He was too old and stiff in the joints and he loved his bed underneath the porch.

"Tige," he said, not too loudly.

The dog whined from underneath the porch.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" asked Elmer. "What is out there, boy?"

Suddenly, he was afraid — more afraid than he'd ever been before. Even more afraid than that time he had run into the Vietcong ambush. A different kind of fear — like a cold hand reaching out and gripping him and holding him and knowing he'd never get away.

The dog whined again.

"Come on, boy," said Elmer. "Come on out and get them."

Tige did not come out.

"All right, then," said Elmer. "Stay there."

He went across the farmyard, shining his light ahead of him, picking out the henhouse door.

The frightened squawking was louder than ever now, insane and frantic.

Long ago, he told himself, he should have repaired the henhouse, plugging up the holes. With the shape that it was in, a fox would have no trouble gaining entry. Although it was strange, if it were a fox, that it should still be there. At the first flash of light, the first sound of a human voice, a fox would have been gone. A weasel, maybe, or a mink. Even a raccoon.

Outside the door he paused, reluctant to go on. But he couldn't turn back now. He's never be able to live with himself if he did. Why, he wondered, should he be so frightened? It was Tige, he thought. Tige was so scared that he refused to come from beneath the porch, and some of that fright had rubbed off on him.

"Damn that dog," he said.

He reached out and lifted the latch, slammed the door back against the side of the building. He balanced the gun in his right hand and directed the flash with his left.

The first thing he saw in the circle of light were feathers — feathers floating in the air. Then the running, squawking, flapping chickens and in among the chickens…"

Elmer Ellis dropped the flash and screamed and in mid-scream jerked the gun to his shoulder and fired blindly into the henhouse, first the right barrel, then the left, the shots so close together that they sounded as one explosion.

Then they were coming at him, leaping from the open door, hundreds of them, it seemed, faintly seen in the light of the flash that lay upon the ground — horrible little monsters such as one would never see except in some sweating dream. He reversed the gun, scarcely realizing that he did it, grasping the barrels in both his hands, using it as a club, flailing with it blindly as they came swarming out at him.

Jaws fastened on an ankle and a heavy body struck him in the chest. Claws raked his left leg from hip to knee and he knew that he was going down and that once he was down they would finish him.

He sagged to his knees and now one of them had him by the arm and he tried to fight it off, while another clawed his back to ribbons. He tipped over on one side and ducked down his head, covering it with his one free arm, drawing up his knees to protect his belly.

And that was all. They no longer chewed or ripped him. He jerked up his head and saw them, flitting shadows, moving out into the dark. The beam of the fallen flashlight caught one of them momentarily and for the first time he really saw the sort of creatures that had been in the henhouse and at the sight of it he bawled in utter terror.

Then it was gone — all of them were gone — and he was alone in the yard. He tried to get up. Halfway erect, his legs folded under him and he fell heavily. He crawled toward the house, clawing at the ground to pull himself along. There was a wetness on one arm and one leg, and a stinging pain was beginning in his back.

The kitchen window glowed with a lighted lamp. Tige came out from beneath the porch and crawled toward him, belly flat against the ground, whining. Mary, in her nightgown, was running down the stairs.

"Get the sheriff," he yelled at her, gasping with the effort. "Phone the sheriff!"

She raced across the yard and knelt beside him, trying to get her hands beneath his body to lift him.

He pushed her away. "Get the sheriff! The sheriff has to know."

"But you're hurt. You're bleeding.,"

"I'm all right," he told her fiercely. "They're gone. But the others must be warned. You didn't see them. You don't know."

"I have to get you in. Call the doctor."

"The sheriff first," he said. "Then the doctor,"

She rose and raced back to the house. He tried to crawl, covered a few feet, and then lay still. Tige came crawling out to meet him, edged in close to him, began to lick his face.