From "Gods and Monsters," my latest book of flash fiction.

https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Monsters-David-C-Kopaska-Merkel/dp/1519729448?ie=UTF8&keywords=Gods%20and%20Monsters%20Kopaska-Merkel&qid=1464543121&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1

Oh yeah, THAT chicken

“Get off the counter!” The chicken fluttered onto the dining-room table. I shooed it toward the outside door, but it flew back to the pass-thru. It pecked at the formica. Then it looked at me.

“These pastel boomerangs are so 50′s.”

“Shut up!” I pulled the cleaver off the magnet bar beside the sink. Me and the chicken, we had a history.

“Are you pondering what I’m pondering?” it asked.

“I think so,” I replied, “but you need two witnesses for a legal will, and we’re alone here.”

An echidna wearing a magenta cape leaped from behind the fridge. “That’s where you’re wrong!” it shrieked.

I jumped. I hadn’t expected the echidna. But then, nobody does. I advanced on the chicken, keeping one eye on the echidna, which made menacing gestures with its forepaws. The wind was picking up, and there was a lot of trash in the air. Wind? Indoors? The anteater laughed crazily.

“Kinda slow on the uptake,” the chicken remarked. “Your housekeeping leaves a lot to be desired,” it added. “And your leap was more a stumble” it said to the echidna. At this point paper was knee deep on the kitchen floor and I couldn’t get into the dining room. I backed out into the hall and went around the other way. However, the dining room doorway was stuffed to the top with shredded paper. I could hear the chicken ranting about clashing paint colors and crooked paintings.

I went outside to call 911.

Darrell Crosby answered. We went to high school together. He married Melissa Echols, a girl I’d had a crush on for years. But I didn’t hold it against him. Not considering how things turned out. I mean, I knew she was an animal lover, but that girl went way too far. There should’ve been a law. Heck, there used to be a law. Bottom line, I knew Darrell would be on my side.

“I’d love to help you, Ted. You know how I feel about them. But my hands are tied as long as they don’t hurt anyone. They didn’t hurt you, did they,” he asked hopefully.

“Couple paper cuts. But they’re occupying my house! At least my dining room. Am I supposed to eat standing up?”

“What part of ‘I can’t freaking arrest them’ don’t you get?”

“You won’t do anything.”

“Can’t.” He hung up.

I hate these stupid animal superheroes, but I hate Critical Chicken the most.

End

Flash fiction from Gods and Monsters

The Pantry

(Being an account of the true events culminating in the disappearance of Ms. M-----, of Lawrence, Kansas, May 15, 1987.)

"There's a giant squid in the pantry."

"I thought you hated calamari."

"No! It's alive. Or, well, I think so. It's making a creepy noise. Anyway, get rid of it. Please?"

Aron sighed, tossed the newspaper on the floor, and levered himself out of the armchair. He opened the pantry door, but he didn't see anything unusual, except that awful domestic burgundy Cele's mother had brought. Certainly not a giant squid.

"I'm sorry, Cele, there's nothing here." He wasn't sorry. He didn't like squid.

*

Aron was at work and Cele was all keyed up. She couldn't watch TV. Her eyes constantly strayed to the pantry door. She had to get away. She ran out to the back yard, but there was nothing to do. The laundry wasn't dry and she had already weeded the rock garden. She found herself at the pantry again. The door thrummed.

She yanked it open. An eye the size of a serving platter blinked slowly, its iris a piercing blue-green.

*

She stood before a door, a huge, ancient door bound with bronze. The door swung open and she realized she was underwater. She swam in, swam faster and faster down a long corridor. Dread and eagerness both swelled within her. She heard distant chanting. Then she was in a huge room where a giant with the head of a squid sat on a throne. He stood and came towards her. She could not move.

She sat up, drenched in sweat and staring wildly. She was at home in bed, her husband sleeping beside her, there was a thing in the pantry, it was 2:30 in the morning. She got up and padded into the kitchen. She rested her hand on the knob of the pantry door. No, this was insane, it really was. She needed to call the shrink as soon as her office opened. Cele let go of the door and turned away. But her hand was still on the door. It opened. Muscular arms wrapped around her; rows of suckers clamped tightly to her skin. She was lifted up and carried into the pantry.

*

"Cele...? Honey? That's funny." He couldn't find her anywhere. Aron looked in every room of the house. The car was in the garage. There was no note. He opened the pantry. A faint fishy scent? No, nothing. Nothing at all.

The end

Gods and Monsters, a collection of speculative flash fiction, was published by Popcorn Press. You can buy it there, or from Amazon.