Warning: Bad things happen to a chicken.
The next afternoon . . .
Eddie Janko rushed into the St. Vincent's emergency room and immediately headed for the nurse's station. She stopped when a man's voice called her name.
"Officer Janko. Over here." Captain Espinoza called again.
"Captain!" Eddie quickly adjusted her course to meet up with the senior officer. "How is he?"
"I see you're done with the shooting team already," Espinoza commented.
"Yes, sir," Eddie quickly replied. "And Jamie?"
"Sergeant Reagan is fine. The cuts turned out to be minor and the doc is stitching them up now. Follow me, and then maybe you can explain what happened," Espinoza demanded as they walked past several curtained-off treatment bays. "How does simple disturbance call end with one of my sergeants in the hospital raving about being cursed by black cats and zombie chickens?"
"Headless zombie chickens," Jamie called out from behind the curtain they'd just arrived at.
Eddie pulled the curtain aside to reveal her husband laying on the hospital bed, surrounded by a doctor and nurse doing their best to suture the gashes just under the jaw and along the neck of their uncooperative patient. "Hi, babe." She quickly moved to his side and took his free hand in hers..
"Heeeey," Jamie greeted his wife. "The zombie chicken didn't get you?"
"No, Jamie, I got it, remember?"
"Oh, yeah. Cluck-cluck-boom!" Jamie snickered.
"Sergeant Reagan, stop moving!" the doctor demanded. "You two need to leave," he told Eddie and Espinoza.
Eddie mouthed a quick 'love you' to her husband as Espinoza led her away from bed and pulled the curtain shut behind them. He turned to face her. "Please tell me this is just how your husband reacts to sedatives and pain meds, with delusions about 'headless zombie chickens'?"
Eddie shook her head. "Not that I know. But, in his defense, there really was a headless chicken."
"And a black cat, and a curse," Jamie added before the doctor shushed him again.
Espinoza led Eddie back toward the waiting room, out of Jamie's hearing. "Explain."
"It started as a miscommunication…"
"As these things often do," Espinoza sighed.
"You heard our call about the chicks being held hostage?"
"Yes, and I dispatched Sergeant Reagan there to supervise and coordinate with ESU."
Eddie nodded. "That's when it went sideways, after he arrived. . ."
==BB==BB==
Sergeant Jamie Reagan brought his patrol car to a stop a behind several other NYPD vehicles already parked in front of the rowhouse where a young man was reportedly holding at multiple women hostage on the back deck. ESU had been called to negotiate with the man, but as this incident was occurring within the confines of the 29th Precinct, on his watch, Captain Espinoza had sent him to the scene also. He scanned the scene as he stood up, looking for the reporting officer. "Janko!" he called as he spotted that officer.
Eddie waved him over. "Over here, Sarge," she called to him.
Jamie quickly strode past two of the RMPs. As he passed the third, he noticed a a pair of pale green eyes staring at him from inside an animal carrier in the backseat, and reflexively skittered a few steps back away from the car. That cat! "Ed?" He pointed to the car.
"We couldn't leave her at Witten's all day alone, could we?"
"So you took her cursing powers on the road?"
"You stop. Kiwi didn't curse you."
"Not today. Not yet." Jamie cast one more glance back at Kiwi, who was, to her credit, sitting calmly in the carrier, licking at her little paws. He refocused his attention on the situation that had brought him here. "So, what's ESU's ETA?"
"Called them off."
"Why?" Jamie asked.
"When Doris Markley here reported her son was holding some chicks hostage, my partner assumed she meant women. Turns out she meant chickens."
"She… what?" Jamie stared at his wife. "Chickens?"
Eddie started leading him toward an alleyway between two of the rowhouses. "See, what happened is Mrs. Markley's son, a Dave Markley, he had a bad breakup with his girlfriend. Well, the girlfriend parents forbid her to see Dave, because apparently, he's a heavy drug user, and the girlfriend was okay with it because she doesn't like the drug use either. And the Mrs. Markley here said she wouldn't let the girlfriend come over. You know, to support the girlfriend's parents' decision. And that made Dave mad, and now he's up on the back deck, which is where they have their chicken coop, threatening to kill their chickens if his mommy doesn't call his girlfriend and get her to come see him."
Jamie sighed. This sounded like a clucking mess. One that certainly didn't require the Emergency Service Unit and their hostage negotiators. His wife had made the right decision calling them off. "Ed, we're still in New York City, right? We didn't get transported to some backwoods Alabama town?"
Eddie punched him lightly on the arm. "Yes, this is still the Big Apple. People are allowed to keep chickens. And here's Mrs. Markley."
Jamie looked over at the woman, who was staring at the second-story deck at the back of the house, and the young man perched on the railing, holding a chicken by its neck and glaring down at his mother and the growing crowed of officers and spectators. "Mrs. Markley?"
The woman turned to look at him. "Officer, please, you have to stop him. I need those chickens alive and laying. I can't feed my family without their eggs," Doris Markley begged.
"Has he threatened the chickens?" Jamie asked.
"Yes! He says he's going to chop off their heads if I don't get Maddie over here to talk to him. But her parents aren't going to let that happen. Officer, please you have to save my chickens!" Doris almost wailed as she grabbed onto Jamie's arm.
"Maddie is the girlfriend?"
"Maddie – Madison – Greenlee," Doris confirmed. "Please, Officer, that one he's holding, that's Eggstra. She's my prize layer."
Jamie pried his arm loose of Dori's grip. "We'll do what we can. Officer Janko, with me." He started walking down the alley until he had a better view of the deck. "Dave! Hey, Dave, I'm Sergeant Reagan. Talk to me!" he called up.
"What?" Dave jumped to his feet, still holding that chicken by its neck in one hand.
Jamie looked over the man. He certainly appeared to be strung out on some drug, probably meth. "Dave, why don't you come down here and we can talk?"
"No way. Not until I talk to Maddie and get things worked out," Dave called down.
"Dave, I don't know if that's possible. Maybe if you release the chicken and come down here first?" Jamie suggested. Release the chicken. Now there's a phrase I never thought I'd say.
"No way. I talk to her first, and then we'll see. I gotta make her see she that she shouldn't have ended things," Dave yelled down.
"Dave, it sounds like Maddie made her decision. You need to respect that," Jamie argued.
Dave screamed and forcefully knocked a jack-o-lantern off the deck railing with his free hand, sending the pumpkin crashing to the ground and causing the officers and spectators to skip backwards to avoid the splattering gourd. "You don't understand. We're going to be together forever, once she's done with high school. We're meant to be together. I can't live without her."
"Ugh, high school love," Eddie moaned beside him. "That first break up is the worst."
"Yeah," Jamie agreed, as Eddie's words gave him an idea. "Dave, hey, I know it feels that way right now," he called up the distraught young man. "I had a girlfriend all through high school. Katie. We were in love, and I had it all planned out. Graduating together, going to the same college, getting married, kids, the whole thing. And then she called it off and moved to Chicago. And you know what? It sucked for a while, but eventually I realized she was right. She had different dreams than I did and we wouldn't have worked."
"It's different for Maddie and me. We're meant to be together. She wouldn't break up with me if her parents hadn't wrecked things. That's why I need to see her!" Dave shouted back. "We can fix this, if we get to talk."
"Okay, Dave, work with me here. I don't think Maddie's parents are going to let her come over here, but how about I get her on the phone? Would that work?"
"No. No, I gotta see her. No phones," David insisted.
"Okay, give me a few minutes," Jamie called up. He turned to Mrs. Markley. "Doris, can you call Maddie's parents? See if they'd let her come over if we protect her?"
"I don't know, but she's right over there. Maddie!" Mrs. Markley called out.
Jamie looked to where Mrs. Markley was pointing and noticed a teen girl, dressed all in black with purple streaks in her hair, her hands shoved deep into her hoodie's pockets. But she didn't look like she used drugs, unlike her former boyfriend. "Shh. Let's not let Dave know she's here yet."
But it was too late. "Maddie! Maddie!" Dave yelled as he spotted his ex-girlfriend.
Maddie looked around the scene – Dave and the chicken on the deck, the cops, the crowd of neighbors – shook her head in disgust and turned to walk away.
"Ed, go get her over here," Jamie ordered. Now that Dave had seen Maddie, there was no way this was going to end well without letting him talk to the girl.
Eddie quickly jogged toward Maddie, although Maddie had already changed her mind and was silently stalking toward the deck. Jamie and Eddie both reached out to stop her before she could get in front of them.
"You know you're a complete idiot," she screamed up to her ex-boyfriend.
"Maddie, come on! Last week, you said you wanted to run away with me to my cousin's place in Delaware! You said you loved me!"
"Yeah, I did. And last week, you told me you'd stopped with the drugs, and that's clearly a lie! So maybe mine was also!"
"I'll stop for you! Give me another chance!"
"NO! You've said that a hundred times. I've given you all the chances I'm going to. I'm done with you!" Maddie turned to walk away.
"Maddie!" Dave yelled. "Maddie, come back!"
"No. I'm done. I'm going to finish high school, I'm going to art school and I'm going to be a success. If you don't change, all you're going to be is a druggie, and I don't want that. We're over. Over!" Maddie spun back around and stalked away.
"Maddie, take that back or the chicken dies!" Dave waved the chicken around for emphasis.
Maddie didn't even turn around.
"David Carl Markley, you put that chicken down," Mrs. Markley interrupted. "You know I depend on those chickens to feed you and your siblings."
That was apparently the last straw for Dave. "Enough already! I'm sick of eggs. I'm sick of chicken. You care more about this stupid chicken that about me and Maddie!" he screamed. He paced across the deck, then came back holding a large knife.
"Whoa, Dave, put the knife down!" Jamie yelled up man, as he motioned for the other officers to move the crowd backward, out off reach if Dave decided to throw that knife..
But it was too late. With the ease of someone who had butchered many a chicken before, Dave held the chicken down to the deck rail and neatly chopped its head off. He threw the bird toward the spectators below.
"Crap!" Jamie ran forward to catch the falling bird. It landed in his arms, head down, its wings still flapping and its feet flailing about. Before Jamie could put it down, one of those claws caught him along the left side of his jaw and neck. He dropped the chicken to the ground and grabbed at the stinging, bleeding gashes on his neck.
Eddie rushed to her husband's side, only peripherally aware of the other officers rushing up the stairs onto the deck and taking Dave into custody, Doris wailing from somewhere behind her and the closer sound of screams from the spectators. "Jamie, let me see," she ordered, then noticed that her husband's gaze was fixated on something on the ground in front of him.
"It's cursed," he whispered.
She followed his wide-eyed gaze down to the chicken, still flapping its wings and strutting about, despite no longer having a head. Screams from the crowd reached her ears. It's alive! Zombie! Demon possessed! Then the chicken turned toward her and Jamie them, flapped its wings again and hopped into the air, headed right for Jamie. Eddied pushed her husband out of the way. . .
==BB==BB==
"And that's when I pulled out my weapon and shot the thing," Eddie concluded.
"And why Sergeant Reagan is jabbering on about headless zombie chickens and black cat curses," Espinoza deduced.
"I mean, Kiwi - the kitten - didn't really curse him, and it wasn't really a zombie chicken. Doris Markley says it happens sometimes, if you don't butcher the chicken just right. Something about brain structures and…"
"and other things I don't want to know about," Espinoza interrupted. He preferred to maintain his illusion that chicken came from the grocery store, in neat little shrink-wrapped plastic trays. "Can't disagree with Reagan, though. That's not the kind of thing that happens to someone who isn't cursed."
Stay tuned for the conclusion tomorrow.
Author's Note - Based on: 1) a true story from my home state of Alabama. Google the Elkmont Chicken Massacre, if you want all the crazy details; and 2) the infamous Mike the Headless Chicken of Fruita, Colorado.
