Rise of the Zombie Turkey Bird!

[Sk8]

Ciera Lindley
Professor McClure
English 110
January 26, 2010

Rise of the Zombie Turkey

Generally I am not one to wake up before the sun peeked over the horizon, but today was different. Through the window the landscape rushed by as my dad traversed the curvy back roads towards our destination. However I didn’t watch the rest of our progress, five o’clock in the morning was a little early for me. Soon enough dad was rushing me out of the truck loading me down with our gear like a human pack mule. The surrounding darkness thrummed with an symphony of bird calls, the eeriness driven home as coldness crept up my spine and into my bones. It was too cold and too early in the morning for a teenager, “Remind me again how long we’re going to be out here?” My voice drowned out by the humming of the hidden birds, if they were birds.

“When the sun goes down,” his hand came down on my shoulder, propelling me forward in the dark, “now let’s set up.”

My grumbled protests were either ignored or unheard, either way dad had the spot tagged and the screen in place before I could bat an eye, “There is no way I’m sitting on soggy, decaying leaves for hours on end,” my words came out muffled, a flashlight clenched between my teeth, illuminating the ground. The soil was still moist, though not enough to soak through the layers of clothing I had on. “Now what?”

“We wait.”

“…We…wait…Right, of course, we wait.” The pearly grey of twilight bleed over the horizon making the surrounding forest look almost surreal. However we did not have to wait long for our prey. Dad was the first to spot the jake as it strutted into the small opening between the trees. The roar of the shotgun echoed in my eardrums, followed up by the victory howl that escaped my father’s lips. Jake’s, for I had already named the turkey, head slammed into the ground followed by the rest of his body. It seemed as if it was a one shot kill, though dad’s call of triumph was premature. Like in the middle of a cheesy zombie movie the turkey leapt from the ground, Jake’s head swiveling back and forth. In a smooth motion he took off at a dead sprint and lifted himself into the air, wings flapping furiously.

Dad had already shot off another round, but the lay of the land was downhill from where we stood. Plus, to Jake’s advantage, the barren tree branches made it difficult to get a direct hit on the fleeing zombie bird. What I had thought would be a boring twelve hours of sitting and waiting turned into a bizarre chase that left me no choice but to follow. I don’t know about my father, but I double checked my safety before jumping over the blind after my dad, “C’mon Sis, we’ve got a live one here!”

“Uh…You mean unlive, right?” Though I don’t think he had heard me over his own battle cry. Dad was a bit…enthusiastic when it came to hunting, something about the thrill of the kill and what not. One Christmas when he was a kid he had killed a deer, painted its nose red, and pronounced to his younger sister that he had, “shot Rudolph,”. Yet secretly cried the first time he ran over a rabbit, bit of a contradiction you might say, but it didn’t stop the man from hunting.

Every once in a while dad would stop to double check the ground and trees for a blood trail. Steadily the sun crept into the sky overhead and soon enough the forest lost its surreal look. The decline of the land began to level out some and below stretched out a green pasture with spots of black and red speckled across it; Angus cattle. An animal trail curved to the right, the left still descending to the pasture below. A hollowed out carcass of a dead cow lay on the edge of the path, dingy white rib bones peeking through the decaying flesh. “Wonderful, want some steak to go?”

“Nah dad, I’m looking forward to roasted turkey tonight instead,”

“If you say so,” dad shrugged, a grin plastered on his face as he continued around the bend and down the pathway. Finally the sun was sitting high in the sky, eleven, twelve? Either way my stomach was beginning to rumble, the sooner we found that bird the better. The early chill had been replaced by a mild warmth, partly from the shining sun and the rest from continuous running. Water ran low in a deep creek bed, the other side sharply rising upward into another steep hill. But our chase had finally come to an end, “Dad,” I muttered, pushing the safety off, bringing my shotgun up.

“Wait,” it was Jake alright, a trail of dried blood marred his beautiful feathers, but that was not the problem. A coyote was moving in on our prey, our prey that we had been chasing after for hours, and here was some coyote moving in on our thanksgiving bird! Unfortunately for us, and the coyote, Jake fled and this time up hill where we had just come from. The damn thing was backtracking and I was convinced it had fled because of the not so sneaky mutt.

“Son of a--” I came up short as my dad shot me a rather interesting looking, as if saying, ‘Son of a what?’, “Ugh!” snarling, I discharged my shotgun in the direction of the would be predator, chasing it away. We never found Jake, and for all I know he is somewhere in Missouri plotting the rise of zombie turkeys against mankind. Maybe.