On a warm October morning, Simon’s mind wandered as he collected eggs from the chicken coop. He went from hen to hen and gently slipped his hand under each to feel for an egg. It wasn’t unusual for a hen to give him some attitude when doing so, but nothing too much. When Simon approached Agnes, his favorite hen in the henhouse, she turned to face him and began to hiss like a cat. She looked like she was preparing to pounce.

Startled, Simon stopped dead in his tracks. “Come on, Agnes. It’s just me…” The hissing grew louder and became more of a shriek. As the high-pitched sound flooded his mind, he slowly backed up and abandoned his appeal. If she did have an egg under there, he wasn’t about to fight her for it. He ducked out of the henhouse and ran across the chicken run, through the spring-loaded gate of the chicken-wire enclosure, and sped off towards the house. The chicken coop’s gate sprang back and slammed behind him. As he ran, the shrieking faded and finally stopped.

The response time for the game warden was surprisingly quick. “Shrieking, ya say, huh?”

“Yeah, like a screaming banshee. I’ve never heard her hiss, either. She’s normally so docile,” Simon said, as he led the game warden down the gravel driveway towards the chicken coop.

“These are some freaked out chickens ya got here,” said the game warden as they approached the coop. There was no mistaking the sound of panicked clucking at this point. All of the chickens were outside the henhouse in the run. Clumped together in the corner, they were climbing over each other and trying to scale the chicken-wire perimeter of the coop. Simon mentioned how strangely they were behaving and that he didn’t see Agnes outside among them. He opened the gate to the coop, and the two men walked gingerly across the run and towards the henhouse.

Simon carefully stepped into the henhouse, followed by the game warden. It was warm and musty inside. Agnes was still sat on her perch at the opposite end of the henhouse facing away from them. “Agnes?” She didn’t move. Simon tried again, “Agnes? It’s me!” Nothing. He looked at the game warden and shrugged. The game warden pulled out a pair of gloves. He walked slowly towards Agnes as he put them on. He reached for her with his right hand. Inches from touching her, he stopped. She was moving. He went for it…

Agnes let out a blood-curdling shriek. Before the game warden could touch her, he was thrown against the wall of the henhouse, where he collapsed in a pile. Agnes stood slowly, revealing a bright, glowing egg underneath her. She turned in her perch to face Simon, who was trembling in fear and not yet recovered from the sheer volume of the shriek. Once they were eye-to-eye, she sat back down on the egg.

What was he supposed to do now? Simon asked himself. He couldn’t check on the game warden because every time he attempted to move forward or called out, Agnes would hiss at him. He slowly backed out and ran to the house. He explained to the 911 operator what had a happened to the game warden. He kept an anxious eye on the chicken coop through the safety of his kitchen window and waited for reinforcements.

All manner of sirens and lights eventually filled Simon’s front yard. The sheriff’s department, the game wardens, and an ambulance had showed up. He opened the front door and hopped down off the porch. His yard was a patchwork of red dirt and a tenacious grass/weed mixture. He was met halfway by a handful of uniformed gentlemen that looked over-prepared to deal with a shrieking chicken. “Good morning, sir. I’m lieutenant Alvarez. What happened to our man?”

“The last I saw he was out… I couldn’t get near him…” said Simon.

“Was he breathing?”

“I couldn’t tell. I was so scared. I’m sorry. I hope he’s OK.”

“So what the hell happened? A chicken screamed at him?” A few of the guys gearing up at the vehicles laughed.

“Yeah, but there’s like some glowing egg under her. It’s like she’s possessed. He just flew against the wall. I don’t know what’s going on. This is fu*king nuts!”

“It’s ok, sir. We’ll take care of it. That’s the chicken coop back there behind your house, correct?”

“Yes, it is. I know, but that chicken is dangerous. I’m serious. It just blew your guy against the wall and may have killed him!”

“Sir, I understand. This is Deputy Knowles,” Alvarez introduced a female sheriff’s deputy who smiled at Simon. “She’ll get some details from you. We’ll take care of the chicken.” And with that, Alvarez turned to his men and made a circular motion with his left arm in the air, “Lets roll!” He checked his rifle and led his men to Simon’s chicken coop.

As the team approached the coop, it was silent. The panicked chickens were gone. They moved purposefully and slowly through the spring-loaded gate and across the run towards the henhouse. The henhouse was roughly the size of a 20 foot travel trailer, so there wasn’t enough room for all of them to pile in at once. Alvarez, hands resting comfortably on the rifle hanging from his chest, approached the henhouse. He paused to get a better idea of what he was hearing. The sound was coming from within the henhouse. It sounded like large dogs eating some sloppy sounding dog food. He turned back to the game warden behind him and gave the guy a look that said, ‘what the fu*k?’

Leading with his rifle, Alvarez entered the henhouse. The game warden followed him. From outside, the rest of the crew heard the shouting, “Oh my god!! No!!! Drop him!!” then gunfire.

Pop pop… pop pop pop…

“Aaghhh!!…”

One after the other, game warden after sheriff’s deputy, they stormed into the henhouse. A pattern developed. First the petrified screams for mercy, then gunfire, then came more screams. Once the plight ran out of reinforcements, silence filled the air.

Back on the front porch of the main house, Deputy Knowles began to see the serious side of Simon’s story when no one answered her status check on the radio. They’d both heard the shouting and gunfire and screams from the chicken coop, and both of their heart and respiratory rates were now elevated. “What’re we gonna do?” Simon asked her.

“Hey, ya’ll hear that shit?” Knowles looked up to see the paramedic and the EMT both holding shotguns they apparently had helped themselves to from the small parking lot of unlocked law enforcement vehicles. Before she could answer, the EMT cut her off, “We were in the Army together. Don’t worry. We’re gonna go see what we can do. Ya’ll OK?”

“We’re good. I’m calling for back up,” said Knowles in a voice that betrayed her efforts to hide her fear. She shared a nod with the EMT and the paramedic and watched them walk away.

“We need back up!” said Knowles as she typed 911 furiously into her cell phone. She stared into Simon’s frightened eyes as she held the phone to her ear and waited anxiously for someone to answer. They both took deep breaths. The chorus of morning cicadas intensified.

“They’re not picking up,” said Simon.

“They’ll pick up!” she barked back at him. “They have to pick up.”

“They’re not gonna pick up. We need to do something.”

“What do you suggest we do?” she said, the phone still held to her ear.

“I don’t Know. I need to think.”

After the 911 operator had calmed her down and she had relayed the story so far, Deputy Knowles said into the phone, “Oh good. Yes, that’s excellent.” She covered the mouthpiece of the phone and whispered to Simon, “They’re gonna send the National Guard.” Back into the phone, “Yes, no. I understand. I’ll wait.”

Simon’s mind ran. It ran like a rollercoaster through every nook and cranny inside his head. It was like a hectic scene from some crime drama where a search warrant has just been served on his mind. The contents of drawers and closets were flying through the air, knives were stabbed into pillows, but no suggestion of what to do about Agnes could be found anywhere inside his head.

And then it came to him. He jumped out of his chair, hopped down off the front porch, and ran across the yard to the closest Sheriff’s vehicle. Knowles noticed his abrupt departure but was still on hold. From the front porch she watched him open the driver’s side door of Alvarez’s Tahoe. He climbed around inside then walked around to the back of the vehicle. What was he looking for? she thought.

Knowles hung up the phone and smiled. She jumped down from the front porch to go look for Simon so she could give him the good news. He wasn’t at Alvarez’s Tahoe. She checked the other vehicles. He was nowhere around. The sound of shotgun fire stopped her in her tracks. She waited. Silence.

Assuming the paramedic and EMT were now also dead, she climbed up into the bed of one of the game warden’s trucks to get a better look over the property. She could see Simon way off behind the house. He was making his way towards the henhouse. “No!” she shouted. “Simon! Stop!” He couldn’t hear her. Didn’t he hear the gunshots? she thought as she dove into the vehicle and began a hurried search for the loud speaker or a megaphone. Not able to locate either, she honked the horn.

She grabbed a pair of binoculars, jumped out of the cab, and climbed back up into the bed of the truck. Looking through the binoculars, she could see he had stopped and was looking back. She waved her arms over her head. Looking back through the binoculars, she saw he had continued walking towards the chicken coop.

Honk! Honk! Honk!… Honnnnnnnnnk!

Through the binoculars, she saw Simon standing outside of the henhouse. He was looking back at her. Knowles waved her left hand over her head as she should stood as tall as she could in the bed of the truck. With the binoculars held in her right hand, she watched for a response. She could see he was wearing a flak jacket and carrying a bag of what she assumed was chicken feed.

“What’re you doing, you crazy asshole?” she said, continuing to wave her arm frantically above head. She wasn’t sure if he could see her and was ignoring her, or if he just couldn’t see her. He stood there staring back at her for a while. She kept waving and staring back at him through the binoculars. “Don’t you dare go in there.” She tried to motion for him to move away from the hen house. He smiled, or at least she thought he did. He turned and disappeared from her sight as he stepped into the henhouse. “Oh no….” She dropped the binoculars as she slumped down in the bed of the truck and looked up at the sky in despair. The distant sound of helicopters approaching grew louder.

Simon’s Chicken Coop was originally published in Hinged on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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