The Zombie Slayer

Chapter Four: The Chicken Farm

The Chicken Farm

I pushed in the door to the barn with a creak and heard the now familiar sound of chicken’s clucking.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” said Sam.

I glanced her way. “You have a ‘bad’ feeling about everything, Sam.” Only a week earlier we’d lost the rest of her convoy in a horrific Styrofoam factory zombie accident. My pudgy cheeks softened somewhat. “Do you miss them?”

“Miss who?”

“You’re convoy. How long were you with them?”

She shrugged. “They came and went. I mean; were eaten. I knew Sarah for 3 years.”

“Which one was Sarah?”

The one screaming, “Die you @#@#$^%@#$#@s! and shooting the shot gun before she was ripped to pieces at that factory. By the way, where were you during that battle? I’m sure if we had the Zombie Slayer on our side we wouldn’t have had so many casualties.”

I frowned earnestly as I tried to grab a chicken to roast over a small fire I’d built with a blowtorch. “Nothing could have stopped the inevitability of their deaths. I mean, the whole world is overrun with the infected, there aren’t that many of us left.”

“You can lead us. You’re famous. Everyone knows of your great deeds.”

I sniffed.

“Tell me, what are these rumors about you finding the ‘cure’? Are they true?”

“I already said, I don’t want to talk about it.”

She gave me a queer look and I turned away to roast the chicken over the fire. It clucked and looked up at me with glowing red eyes. “Hey, I think my chicken is infected.”

The chicken screamed and spit undead goop in my right eye. “Arrrggh!”

Sam screamed and pulled out a .45 “Don’t move, Robert!”

I leapt up and spun around, trying to throw the diseased chicken off me before he could scratch me and end my days as the hero of all mankind. “Are you insane?”

There was a load crack and a spit of flame, the bullet missed the chicken and my hands—about the chicken’s neck throttling it—“For Pete’s sake, woman!”

“Don’t move!”

The chicken screamed.

I snapped its neck. I held it out to Sam, dangling limply. “Care for a bite of KFC?”

She shook her head in disgust. “For such a legend, you’re sure not thinking of the big picture here.”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” I quickly retorted.

“And?” she said.

I shrugged. “I’m still thinking. I was figuring something along the lines of ‘find some other people and teach them not to die’. Even if I were to—cough—go out with you, as it were; we still need more people to repopulate the earth.”

“I think you’re thinking a bit too far ahead here, Robert. We need to destroy the Zombies.”

I waved the recommendation off. “I’ll deal with that.”

“How,” she asked incredulously.

“We’re going to see the Tinker.”

“Can he kill all the zombies?”

“No…but I can.”