Page 6 of January Bell

Ground slams into my back, knocking the air from my lungs, and I lay there stunned, mouth gaping like a fish as I try to get oxygen back into my body and fail miserably at that incredibly important task. A task I might, in fact, have taken for granted. Shouldn’t the chicken, rooster, whatever the fucking megafauna poultry, have tried to eat me by now?

Something crunches as I move, the snap crackle pop signaling a major problem.

The comms tablet.

I want to scream, but there’s not enough breath in my lungs. It’s crushed where I had it tucked into my waistband.

There’s no way to communicate with my friends now, but since it’s looking like I’m about to be winner winner literal chicken dinner, that’s the least of my problems.

I finally get air, and some of the stars clouding my vision wink out of existence. I rub my leg, willing sensation to return to my deadened foot, before a beak plunges down in the dirt next to me, causing me to scramble away as fast as I can. I hardly feel the rock slicing into my palms.

Something slams into the ground in front of me, blocking me from the rooster’s line of vision, purple wings spread high, and I nearly weep with recognition.

“Zan,” I say on an exhale.

“Bawk, bawk,” the huge hen thunders, reaching around Zan to stare at me with her large beady eyes.

“Good chicken…. Please don’t eat me,” I add. “Zan, the comms tablet is broken.”

“No one will eat my human but me,” Zan roars.

Maybe I hit my head harder than I thought, because I know he did not just tell that to two giant dinosaur birds.

He’s a hell of a lot braver than me.

Or dumber.

Maybe both.

I rock a little, trying to sit up, trying to get away, the comms tablet crunching even more under my butt, making me cringe.

I want to cry, but I’m too scared.

The rooster cock-a-doodle-doos again, and I’ve never heard anything so vicious. They didn’t have that in the barnyard books; that’s for damn sure. The huge yellow foot raises, claws sparkling in the sunlight.

The bird raises both wings, flapping harm, and aiming his spur directly at Zan.

I screech and scrabble further backwards up until a tree trunk blocks my escape. Zan, meanwhile, has tucked and rolled to the side, avoiding the rooster’s strike better than I could have. I nearly weep with relief because Zan came back. He came back when I needed him. And by god, he is putting himself in the line of danger for me.

I have never had anyone do that for me before in my life.

I also have never been attacked by a giant rooster and a giant evil hen, but that’s neither here nor there.

In fact, it’s squarely in front of us.

“Do you have chickens that big on your planet?” I yell at Zan, cringing away as the hen pecks up the ground near me, dust flying up.

My stomach growls, and I put my hand on it. Not that it’s going to do anything, the noise has already drawn the attention of both huge birds. There must be some strange lizard part of my brain still firing from caveman days. One look at that rooster’s glossy plumage and huge wings, and my brain immediately pings to all you can eat barbecue.

He’s got some meat on him.

And I am really freaking hungry.

“Do you think you can kill it?” I yell at Zan, which is a stupid thing to do because the rooster cockle-doos again, laser-focusing one beady eye on me. The hen pecking at the dirt decides to lay down with both wings spread, dust flying in every direction.

“Of course I can kill it.” Zan looks outraged at the mere suggestion that he might not be capable of striking down some mutant rooster on an alien planet. “You question my honor?” he asks, thumping his chest with a fist, wings flying high.

“No, I don’t question anything, I’m just hungry. I want to eat the rooster.”