CRACKED: An Anthology of Eggsellent Chicken Stories by J. Posthumus (read after txt) 📕

the ground, and strode across the barnyard. He snatched up one of the chickens pecking at the seeded ground. With a firm grip on the squawking fowl’s neck, the Dark Lord entered the barn and closed the door behind him.

The squawking rose to a frenetic pitch.

Then, suddenly, there was nothing but silence.

A few minutes later, the Dark Lord exited the barn empty handed. Brooster watched him leave through slitted eyes, fluffed his feathers, and turned to Naebi.

“When do we start?” Brooster asked.

For the next two weeks, the last Araneae put the rooster through his paces. Each morning, training began before Brooster could even finish crowing in the new day and didn’t finish until the sun had long set.

“To defeat Hartvar, you must be swift and cunning,” Naebi counseled as Brooster hauled him around the yard on his back. “You must use his darkness against him without you yourself falling into its trap.”

“And how do I do that?” Brooster huffed, hopping over a couple of small rails lying unused on the ground.

“You must use the vigor, Brooster.”

“Use the what?!”

“The vigor,” Naebi explained as Brooster ducked between two tree branches without breaking stride. He continued, “This is the power behind the light side of the Great Web. With it there is nothing you cannot do. But you must master it and yourself… or fall to the dark side you will, as Hartvar did.”

“So I use the vigor to throw things at him and make him see thing that aren’t there, right?”

“No, you overgrown peacock.” Naebi smacked Brooster on top of his head. “You use your head for something other than shoulder ballast. You outthink him.”

“Oh, sorry.” Brooster grumbled around a mouthful of rope, a rock Naebi had him crossing the yard with tied off at the other end. “And just how do I go about that?”

Naebi sighed a long-suffering sigh. “Try figuring out when the best time to attack him would be?”

“Say, that’s not bad. I like that,” Brooster crowed. “We can’t do a thing to him at night. All that mutt does is run around and growl at anything that moves. Hard to get a wink of sleep with all that ruckus goin’ on.”

“Yes,” Naebi agreed. “And what does he do most of the day?”

“That lazy hound just lays around his doghouse,” Brooster replied. “I bet he doesn’t wander more than ten feet from it, especially with that big ol’ chain latched around his neck.”

Naebi rested his head on a folded limb, tapped another softly on Brooster’s neck and just waited.

“Say,” Brooster exclaimed. “That gives me a jim dandy idea!”

“I thought it might.” Naebi smiled.

Hartvar napped outside his doghouse in the warm afternoon sun. The large black Labrador hound, it was said, was a champion napper by day. No one ever said that to his face. What was said about his nocturnal activities was even less polite. The hound heard all of it anyway, of course, and didn’t care. A fly buzzed above his head but he gave it little thought. A flick of one ear to chase off the intruder every few seconds was about all the energy he had to devote to the pest.

At the next ear flick, Hartvar cracked open an eye. Passing across his narrow field of vision was that mouthy rooster, alternating between whistling and singing the words, “doo-dah” as he strutted across the barnyard. In one wing, the infuriating fowl tossed a red ball up and down. That red ball belonged to Hartvar and it was his favorite ball!

With a bellowing howl, Hartvar leapt to his feet and hurtled toward the offending rooster. The white bird, seeing his approaching doom, bolted for the opposite side of the yard. The hound closed the distance fast and spread his jaws open wide in anticipation of a mouthful of tailfeathers. But his jaws snapped shut on empty air as he ran out of slack in the chain hooked to his collar. His forward momentum halted immediately and all of the energy was transmitted to slamming his body to the ground. He lay there, stunned, as the rooster calmly walked up to his fallen foe.

Brooster took his time, enjoying every second of his victory as he strode right up to the hound. “Y’know, son,” Brooster clucked as he discarded the ball. “For a dog you’re alright. But you’re about as bright as an unplugged Christmas tree. Let’s see here. Now, where should we begin?”

Brooster produced a bucket and brush and swiftly painted a pair of white stripes down the dog’s back. “Folks around these here parts think you’re a bit of a skunk, boy,” Brooster said as he admired his handiwork. “You may as well look the part, son. And smell it too.”

Brooster pried open the dog’s mouth and tossed in a ball of limburger cheese, liberated from the Dark Lord’s lunch earlier in the day. Slamming the dog’s mouth shut, Brooster held on tight until the dog swallowed the smelly cheese. Hartvar’s eyes watered as the smelly cheese made its way down his gullet, causing him to cough and gag. Brooster grabbed the stricken hound by the tail and raised its rear as high as he could as he drew back one large leg.

“Aw, shaddup!” he crowed as he booted the hound, sending the canine flying back toward the doghouse. “No matter how often I lay my eyes on him, that boy’s departin’ always brightens up my day.”

The dog one-hopped the doghouse and quickly scrambled inside, curling up in a ball in the back and refusing to come out even when the Dark Lord called out for him hours later. Brooster turned on his claw and strutted triumphantly back toward Naebi while the other fowl cheered their new hero’s victory.

The first skirmish in the rebellion had been fought and Brooster’s fowl alliance had been born.

“Knocking Hartvar off his perch was small potatoes, Brooster,” Naebi cautioned. “You’ve still got to deal with the Dark Lord. To get to him,