Attack of the Giant Robot Chickens (4 page)

I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. I remembered Rayna saying that some kids gave people to the chickens. She had almost been caught herself because of it. It certainly explained why she was scared of Union Street. But, more importantly, I could probably get out of this. I would just need to sacrifice Rayna to do it.

“Does she need to be given up? I believe that she can be saved. After all, she did bring me here. Surely that can be counted in her favour? I believe that she needs to be given another chance.”

Shorty sneered at me. “Do you indeed? Well you still know little of our ways. So you must make this choice. Do you go with her or do you renounce her and stay?”

I flickered my eyes to the side again but shifted them back when Rayna tried to catch my eyes. Time. I needed more time.

“Well Stranger? What say you?”

“I will give you my answer tomorrow,” I said, as loudly and as confidently as I could. “When the rooster gives his call you will know what is on my mind, for that is the proper time for such things.”

“Very well.” Shorty turned and swept off. I was slightly impressed. I knew it was harder to do a proper
sweep than it appears. “Until tomorrow.”

Maybe he was expecting his followers to go with him. Some of them did, but most stayed, staring at me. I knew I’d probably never have this opportunity again as long as I lived so I gave them a great big beaming smile.

“Hey,” I said to them. “Want to hear some jokes?”

I managed to keep them entertained for ages. It wasn’t easy. There are a lot of chicken jokes in the world but I had to be careful not to say anything that wasn’t chicken friendly. To begin with they just stared at me. Eventually, though, one or two of them sniggered then they began to laugh at each one. I tried hard not to show it but it freaked me out a bit. A lot of those jokes weren’t even funny.

As hosts they weren’t that bad. I mean, we were kept strapped to the chairs for the entire day, which became very uncomfortable very quickly, but we were fed at about lunchtime and again at teatime. They had corn on the cob. I have no idea where they managed to find it, but that’s what they gave us. They wouldn’t unbind us but they were good enough to hold it so that we could eat. I think they liked me because there was a small argument over who got to feed me. I’m not going to lie, it felt good to be liked. We even got some butter on the corn. I don’t know where they got that either.

Eventually night fell and we were left alone. My muscles were all stiff and I really needed to go to the toilet, but at least we were still alive and hadn’t been given to the chickens. Rayna hadn’t said anything during the whole day, even when they’d taken her gag off so that she could eat. She’d just flexed her mouth one or twice as if trying to work the taste of the gag out of it and taken bites of food. They hadn’t replaced
it afterwards and she hadn’t given them reason to. I think she’d fallen asleep.

“Rayna,” I hissed. “Wake up.”

“I am awake,” she said opening her eyes and straightening her head. “What do you want?”

I frowned at the tone in her voice.

“What is it?” I asked.

She didn’t reply for a time and I thought that she really had fallen asleep. Eventually she said, “What are you going to do tomorrow?”

“What?” I asked, momentarily confused.

“What are you going to do tomorrow?” she asked again. “‘When the rooster gives his call’ as you put it. Are you going to abandon me? Give me up to the chickens?”

“Rayna…”

She wouldn’t let me finish. “I wouldn’t blame you. You’ve got to look out for yourself. You hardly know me, after all and you’ve certainly made it clear that you don’t trust me. You even kind of fit in here.” Her voice got all choked up and I thought I could see a tear running down her cheek. “Why don’t you just look out for number one?”

“Rayna,” I said firmly. “Shut up and stop being an idiot.”

She looked at me, her mouth hanging open slightly. I was surprised too. I didn’t usually speak firmly. “Of course I’m not going to betray you. I just said that to give us some time.”

“Time for what?” she asked. I looked at her, worried. How could she not get it?

“Time to escape,” I told her. “Are you all right? You really don’t seem yourself.”

She shook her head. “Of course I’m not all right,
idiot. I’m tied to a chair and being held captive by a cult who want to give me to their chicken overlords. Who would be all right with this?”

“OK, OK,” I told her, trying to calm her down. “Take a deep breath. Now start from the top. How did they get you? You must have known to look out for them.”

She did what I told her, breathing in and trying to compose herself. “Of course I did. But I was looking down towards St Nicholas’, where they usually hang out. I didn’t know that they would be on one of their pilgrimages. They got me from behind.”

I nodded, carefully remembering everything. So we were in the Kirk of St Nicholas. I vaguely remembered it as a tall church. I think I’d been inside it once or twice to look around, but I couldn’t remember much about it.

“Their pilgrimage?” I asked. I just had to know.

She nodded wearily. “From time to time they go to a place of evil and throw stuff at it.”

“A place of evil? Where?”

“KFC.”

I couldn’t help it, I cracked up. She glared at me. “Stop it. If you’ve got a way to get us out of here then do it.”

“OK, just give me a second.” I started struggling against the ropes that bound me. There had to be a weakness here somewhere.

After fifteen minutes, I realised that there wasn’t. For all their silliness, someone in the Brotherhood of the Egg must have been in the Scouts or something because these were really well tied knots. I tried rocking the chair backwards and forwards but it was old and heavy and wouldn’t budge. Twenty minutes after that I finally accepted it. There was no way out.

“Any luck?” Rayna asked. I knew that she’d been doing the same thing. From the defeat in her voice she hadn’t had any more success than I had.

“Um… no. But I’m sure that something will come up.”

She didn’t even reply to that, just snorted. I knew that it was hopeless as well. The only one who knew where we were was Glen and he wasn’t likely to notice that we were gone or care if he did. He’d probably just assume that we weren’t to be trusted after all. Even if someone from the train station knew they probably wouldn’t do anything about it. We had a rule that said that if someone didn’t come back then that was it. It was easier just believing that they’d left of their own accord than because they’d been caught.

There was no one coming to save us.

“So what are you going to do?” Rayna asked after a while. “What are you going to do tomorrow? When they ask for your decision?”

I thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know,” I said honestly.

“You don’t know? What is there to know? Either you save yourself or you give us both to the giant chickens.”

The despair in her voice was horrible to hear.

“Well what do you want me to do?” I asked.

“I don’t want to be taken. I really don’t.” She said it in a little voice that made my insides curl up. I had to do something.

“What day of the week do chickens hate the most?”

There was a pause. “What?”

“I said what day of the week do chickens hate the most?”

“Why are you asking me that now?” I could hear a hint of anger creeping into her voice. Good.

“Fry-day. Why did the chick disappoint his mother?”

“Seriously, shut up with the chicken jokes.” She was definitely getting more annoyed.

“Because he wasn’t everything he was cracked up to be. What do you get when a chicken lays an egg on a hill?”

She began to rock backward and forwards in her chair, though it didn’t move. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

I delivered the punch line. “An eggroll.”

And from the shadows off to our left came a giggle.

We both froze. “Who’s there?” I called.

Out of the shadows crept the little girl who had taken the book out of my jacket. All day she’d been sitting in the front row of the crowd, gazing up at me. Now she was back.

And she had a knife.

I instantly fixed my eyes on it. “What are you doing?” I asked, trying to appear calm.

The girl circled round behind me. I tried turning my head to keep up with her but eventually she passed the point where my head wouldn’t turn any more. I held my breath, not sure what was about to happen. Then there was a brief sawing sound and my hands were free.

It felt amazingly good. I could only groan as she went to work on the rope stretched around my chest. When that finally gave way I almost fell forward. I managed to catch myself just in time and massaged my wrists, trying to get some feeling into them. I regretted it a moment later as pain flared sharply through them, but it was better than the numbness. I looked at them and saw that the ropes had left impressions around each hand. I quickly looked away again. The sight just brought more pain.

While I’d been tending to my hands the girl had freed my legs, which also started hurting a moment later. I tried to stand up but collapsed back down again. It would take a lot of stretching before my legs were able to support my weight. I turned to the girl and did my best to smile through the pain.

“Could you go and free that girl over there?” I asked, pointing. She looked up at me solemnly, then nodded and scampered over to Rayna, carrying the knife with exaggerated care. A moment later the sound of her hacking away at the ropes drifted over.

I began jerking and kicking my legs, trying to wake them up. Now that we were free I didn’t want to wait around any longer than I had to.
Wings of Bronze
had fallen off my lap onto the floor at some point during the day and I picked it up, tucking it back inside my jacket. It might have just saved my life. The least I could do was actually read it.

After about five minutes I was able to get up and totter over to Rayna, who was only just getting feeling back into her legs herself. She looked up at me and I saw relief flit across her face. “We’re going to be fine,” she whispered. I just nodded to her.

“Let’s go before they notice that we’re free.” She tried to heave herself up but I pushed her back down.

“Give it another few minutes. I want to try something.”

I turned to the little girl and held out my hand. “Can I have the knife, please?”

She nodded and handed it to me. I don’t know where she’d got it but it was a vicious thing, with a serrated blade on one edge. It looked like it had come from a survival shop to be used against bears or something. I carefully put it to one side and began gathering up all
the cut rope. “Do you know where they put our bags?” I asked her.

She nodded again and skipped off, a white ghost in the darkness. A second later she was back dragging my bag. I coiled the rope and was putting it inside when she returned again with Rayna’s bag.

“What are you doing?” asked Rayna, still sitting there. I looked up at her and winked.

“Sowing some confusion,” I told her and pulled out my notebook. “See I use this to jot down chicken jokes when there’s no one there to tell them to. It’s great when I’m on watch with nothing to do.” I tore out one of the pages. It hurt a bit to do it. I’d got really attached to the notebook and vandalising it like that didn’t feel quite right. But part of me felt that the spirit of the notebook knew what I was doing and would have agreed. I dug a pen out of a pocket and scribbled on the piece of paper. Then I held it up for Rayna to see.

“We’ve flown the coop,’” she read out loud. Then she focused on me. “Really?”

I shrugged as the little girl beside me giggled. “It’s worth a try. Now let’s go.” I turned to the girl. “Coming?”

“What?” Rayna and the girl said it at the same time. I looked at Rayna and shrugged.

“Well, we can’t leave her here. She might get into trouble. And she did help us.”

“But she’s one of them.”

“She’s a human,” I said firmly. I could tell that Rayna wasn’t thinking clearly. The joy of being free combined with the fear she still felt was a confusing mixture. “That means she’s one of us.”

Then I turned to the girl. “Do you want to come with us?” I asked her, holding out a hand. She thought about it for a moment, then took my hand and nodded.
I reached out my other hand to Rayna and helped pull her to her feet. We got our backpacks firmly settled then set off, creeping down the pews. Luckily we’d been kept near the doors and we didn’t have to go through any side rooms to get out. Rayna eased the door open and we stepped out into the night.

We were still unsteady on our feet and the little girl looked exhausted. I guess she wasn’t used to late nights. The air was crisp and cold. I knew we couldn’t go far, but we needed to get far enough away that we could take shelter and not be found when they eventually came after us. I was tempted to head for the train station but I couldn’t be sure that we’d make it. The last thing that I wanted to do was lead the cult back there. So I made for the top of Upperkirkgate and the Aberdeen College building. There was a museum we should be able to get in through, and it was a big enough building that we’d probably be able to escape out of a side door if we needed to.

We made it most of the way there when the bells in the church behind us began pealing out. We lurched forward faster, all three of us dead on our feet. I remembered going up to the top of the church tower once and seeing a little piano that controlled the bells. That was the only way to explain what I was hearing.

“What is that?” Rayna asked while I began to chortle.

The little girl looked up and said, deadpan, “That’s the warning bells.”

Rayna frowned down at her. “It’s the Birdie Dance song.”

I burst out into laughter. “Oh, Egbert’s group is the best.”

Rayna shot me an angry glare and together we staggered into the museum and to safety.

We crept through the museum and into Aberdeen College itself, finally finding a coffee room with comfortable looking couches. The little girl walked over to one and curled up without saying a word, falling asleep quickly. Rayna and I grabbed a couch each. It might have been the adrenaline of our close escape, but we just lay there, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.

Rayna was the first to break the silence. “What would you have done?” she asked.

I really didn’t want this conversation, but Rayna wasn’t likely to drop it any time soon. So I sighed and said, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Her voice was perfectly smooth, like quicksand. I had a feeling that I had to tread carefully during this conversation or I’d find myself in deep trouble.

“No, I don’t know. I want to say that I would have said that we couldn’t be separated, but I don’t know if that’s true. I might have cracked at the last moment. Like an egg.”

“Stop that,” she said, her voice a harsh whip crack. The little girl stirred slightly in her sleep and we didn’t say a thing until she had calmed down. Eventually I spoke again.

“Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to tell you. But it’s the truth and at least it’s better that than a lie.”

There was the sound of her releasing her breath, slowly, like a balloon deflating. “That’s fair, I guess. I’m
sorry, I was just so scared back there.”

I nodded up at the ceiling. “Yeah, me too.”

“No you weren’t,” she corrected me. “I was watching you all day. You were just sitting there, cracking jokes without a care in the world. I don’t know if you’re really brave or really stupid but you don’t seem to be afraid of anything. I guess… I guess I kind of envy you that.”

“Don’t bother,” I told her. “I spend most of the time terrified. I could hardly think straight for fear.”

“What do you mean?”

I guess it was time for the truth. She still hadn’t told me that much about herself but right then I didn’t care. Maybe it made me weak, but she was the closest thing to a friend I had in this world.

“I don’t make jokes because I’m brave. I make them because I’m really, really scared.”

There was a brief moment of silence. Then she went, “Oh,” drawing out the o to show that she understood.

I spelt it out anyway. It felt good to just be honest.

“I mean, look around us. We’re in an apocalypse caused by chickens. Or giant chicken shaped things anyway. How can anyone take that seriously? I mean, if I actually stopped and thought about it, about how giant robot things are stalking the streets, I’d probably just collapse and cry. How can we even take those things on? They’re bigger than tanks, their beaks can peck through concrete and they lay explosive eggs. So I make jokes. Especially about chickens. I refuse to take it seriously. It’s just my coping mechanism. It probably helps that I’ve never actually seen anyone taken. I can pretend it’s as stupid as I want. So there you go. There’s the big secret. I’m actually a huge coward.”

I let out a huge breath. She now knew all my ‘secrets’;
everything important about me in this new world. It was scary but also kind of nice. Even if I hadn’t traded a secret for a secret like I had wanted to.

Then she began to talk.

“I actually lived just outside Stonehaven, on a farm. A chicken farm. And I was there the day that the chickens came.”

I blinked up at the ceiling. She had lived on a chicken farm? I couldn’t even begin to imagine what the chickens would have done about that.

She kept on talking. “The day started normally. I’d helped to feed the chickens with Dad. I remember that they all seemed unusually alert but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I was getting ready to go into town. Then there was this noise like a plane getting closer and closer. I hurried outside and saw these giant shapes coming right towards us. I yelled to my family and everyone else came piling out. My mum, my dad and my little sister, Hazel, who was two years younger than me.”

I did the maths in my head. That would have made Hazel a year younger than me. Eleven.

“We didn’t know what it was but we knew it was bad. We all ran towards the car but Dad wanted to make sure the chickens were all locked up first. He was just coming out of the barn when a chicken landed right in our front garden. Did you say that you’d seen their laser eyes?”

I nodded. I’d seen them in action.

“Well, it swung its head around and took the top right off the barn, like it was cutting open a packet of cereal or something. It was between Dad and us so he just yelled at us to go, backing away towards the house. It seemed more interested in him and we managed to
get away.

“We had no idea what to do. We just drove toward Aberdeen. Mum made us try and call the police or something but none of our mobiles would work. Then we got to Aberdeen just as the chickens hit there.”

There was a catch in her voice and I knew she was crying. I didn’t say anything and just let her get on with her story. Interrupting now would be wrong.

“It was like something out of a nightmare. It’s still in my nightmares. We got to the police station and a rush of people came at us. We all got separated in the crowd. I ended up hiding in a house somewhere. I don’t know where. I guess Mum must have got taken along with everyone else because I haven’t seen her or any other adult since. I searched and searched for my little sister.”

She didn’t talk for a long while. Eventually I had to prompt her.

“Did you ever find her?”

“Yeah,” she said, swallowing a sob. “On Union Street.”

And now everything made sense.

“She’d fallen in with the Egbert’s lot. I tried talking to her, to make her see sense. I think that I was getting through to her because the next thing I knew Egbert had turned her over to the chickens. I still see it, Jesse. I can still see the Brotherhood coming for us, trying to grab us. Hazel just calmly told me to go and then she walked over to them. A chicken was already there. They formed a circle around, made sure that she couldn’t get away. She didn’t even try. She was just frozen to the spot, terrified. The chicken leaned down, looking at her through first one eye then the other. Then it just pecked down and grabbed her. If you look carefully I’m sure you can still see the mark its beak gorged into
the concrete. And she was gone. I couldn’t do a thing.”

The last word ended with another sob.

“Later I learned all about the Brotherhood. The chickens use them for guarding and keeping an eye out for troublesome kids. They give them food and leave them be, as long as they do what they want.”

She swallowed, obviously gathering her thoughts and trying to calm down. “A couple of days after they took Hazel I found a guy who said that he’d been captured by the chickens but managed to escape. They’d taken him to the Pittodrie football stadium down by the beach and put him in a cage with some other kids they’d caught. I went to take a look for myself, hoping that I could find her, but the security was too good. The Brotherhood was all over it. And I couldn’t ask the guy who escaped for more information because the chickens got him again. They have a way of tracking down anyone who escapes. My sister didn’t stand a chance. And then I realised something. It wasn’t that I was weak. The chickens were just too strong. There was nothing I could do on my own.”

She raised her head and looked at me. Even in the dark I could see the gleam in her eye.

“But all of us together? We have a chance. That’s why I don’t join anyone. Why I’m so set on getting everyone together so that we can take the chickens down. To pay them back for what they did to me and my family.”

Rayna didn’t speak after that. I wanted to go over and give her a hug, just to let her know that it was all going to be OK but I felt too awkward. Hugs were something mums gave.

So I said what I could.

“You know, people reckon that the Catchers don’t kill kids when they get taken. If they wanted to kill them
it would be easier to do it where they are, instead of taking them off somewhere else. I saw plenty of lasers being fired when they first attacked, but I never saw them hit anyone. They just destroyed some buildings and some roads. So I think that it’s pretty safe to say that your sister is still alive. And if that’s the case, we will get her back.”

She turned her head and I could see a tiny bit of hope in her eyes as she looked at me. “Yeah?”

“You better believe it. I’m not getting beaten by some overgrown feather duster.”

She chuckled slightly. “So we’ve both learned a lot about each other tonight,” she whispered. I nodded in agreement, though I knew she couldn’t see me.

“I promise not to tell anyone that you are obsessed with beating the chickens because of your family.”

“And I promise not to tell anyone that you only make chicken jokes because you’re scared. But… uh… could you do me a favour? Your chicken jokes are still really, really annoying. So could you please try and dial them down a bit?”

I smiled at her. “I promise to try.”