All We Have To Fear

by Gary D. Snyder

Chapter 13:

It was almost inevitable that the military would become involved with the odd happenings in Retroville. At first the skeptical military liaison officer obtained some respite from the incessant phone calls by referring the frantic callers to the business offices of Fangoria. But when the callers learned 1) that the business offices were closed, and 2) what Fangoria actually was, he was soon overwhelmed by the same callers, no less frantic but far more irate. Not knowing what else to do the officer passed the calls on to his superior, who in turn forwarded the calls further up the chain of command. In time the situation came to the attention of none other than General Ernest Abercrombie through his long-suffering aide.

Most military officers would have dismissed the reports immediately as nonsense, but the general had learned firsthand that odd things could and did happen in Retroville. On the other hand, he had more than once taken action only to find that the reports were either wildly exaggerated or apparently complete fabrications. He slowly drummed his fingers on his desk as he mulled over the reports.

"Vampires, you say?" he asked at last.

The lieutenant riffled through the sheaf of papers in her hand for confirmation before answering. "Yes, sir."

"And mummies, as well?"

"So we've been told, sir," she answered stiffly.

"And werewolves, too." The thoughtful look crossed the general's face. "Wild blue yonder, lieutenant! Do you know what this means?"

The lieutenant looked hopeful. "That it's a massive hoax of some kind that we can ignore and then go home?" she asked.

The general stood up and put his hands behind his back. "That's what they'd like you to think. But vampires come from Eastern Europe. Mummies hail from the Middle East. And werewolves come from…well, I don't know exactly but I'd bet my last star that they aren't from the good old U. S. of A." He pounded his fist on the disk. "This all adds up to a full-scale invasion, lieutenant."

The aide tried to follow the reasoning of her commanding officer and once again failed miserably. "Sir?"

"It's all very clear now," General Abercrombie went on. "These creatures are nocturnal and the perfect choice for a night strike." He paused and looked closely at the lieutenant. "Is there something in your eye, soldier?"

The lieutenant shook her head. "Just a nervous tic, sir."

"Better have that checked out. You seem to have those every time I see you, lately. What was the last monster reported?"

"Uh…" His aide checked her notes again. "A large chicken."

"Hmm…" The general considered it. "Any other details?"

"Reports say that it was between 50 and 100 feet tall."

General Abercrombie shook his head. "Then it's definitely not one of ours. We'd better get a chopper and check this out, pronto."

The lieutenant's heart sank. "We?"

"Absolutely. Some field duty will do wonders for that tic of yours. And while we're en route we can listen to my latest copy of Yodeling to the Oldies 3." He peered at the young lieutenant, who was now rubbing the sides of her head and wishing again that she had gone to the Naval Academy in Anapolis. "And the fresh air would probably help that headache of yours."

So it was that the two officers found themselves in the skies over Retroville about the same time that Libby, Carl, Sheen, and Miss Fowl made their way to the general area of Poultra's rampage. All of them, with the exception of Carl, were aghast to see the return of the giant fowl. As they were gaping at the huge beast Cindy and a number of other citizens of Retroville, who had also attracted by the noise, arrived on the scene.

"Cindy! Where you been, girlfriend?" Carl asked when he spotted her.

"Don't even ask," Cindy snorted. She gave the others a long look, temporarily oblivious to the monstrous chicken. "What's with the get-ups? Is it actually Hallowe'en now?"

Carl shrugged. "I don't know. There was this vampire but he got real scared because Miss Fowl became this vampire slayer. Then Libby shot all these mummies that came after us and when these guys with swords jumped out Sheen took care of them with his whip." He looked oddly pensive. "It was actually kind of interesting. Do you think that anyone would want to see a movie about any of this stuff?"

Cindy didn't answer the question, thinking instead about something that Carl had said. "Did you say the vampire was afraid of Miss Fowl?"

"Oh, yeah," he nodded vigorously. "It was kind of weird, because it was like he thought she was like a bad dream or something."

The changes to the phobifier are working, Cindy thought. I guess that big-brained buttinksi did it after all. "Did you hear that, Nerd-tron?" she asked aloud. "Satisfied?" There was no answer. "Neutron?" she repeated. "Hello?"

"Who are you talking to?" asked Libby, who had finally noticed that Cindy was there.

Cindy looked doubtful. "No one, I guess," she replied slowly.

"Where have you been, anyway?" Libby wanted to know. "Do you know what's been going on here?"

"One, you don't want to know. And two, yes, I do. Neutron found out that his dorky invention at the haunted house was making these monsters so he changed it to create whatever these monsters are afraid of." Cindy gazed at the large form of Poultra, who was continuing to wreak havoc several block away. "Is this the only thing left?"

Sheen shrugged. "I haven't seen anything for a while."

"Nor me," agreed Libby.

"I haven't either," added Miss Fowl.

"Ditto that," said a round figure in a masked blue-and-red costume, who swung down from above to join them. "This looks like the last thing to take down." He eyed the behemoth speculatively. "That is one big chicken, yeah," he commented.

Cindy frowned at him. "Sam?"

The figure started. "Uh…yeah. Yeah. Your friendly, neighborhood Spider-Sam, that's me."

"No, I mean –" Cindy began, but Sheen interrupted her.

"So how do we take this thing down?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," Cindy admitted. "There has to be something around that Poultra is afraid of that phobifier would create. Whatever that is can defeat her. But what would Poultra be afraid of?"

"Well," Libby speculated, "it would have to be something that she knows could take her down."

"Yeah, yeah, sure," said Spider-Sam. "But what would that be?" They all thought back on their previous personal encounters with Poultra to determine what the phobifier might create to defeat this final threat.

"Jimmy," said Sheen at last.

"Jimmy," agreed Miss Fowl.

"Definitely Jimmy," nodded Spider-Sam.

"I'd say Jimmy," said Libby.

"Colonel Chicken," offered Carl. "With his secret recipe and that extra crispy coating…" The others stared at him and he wilted. "Okay, Jimmy," he conceded.

Miss Fowl asked the obvious question. "But where is Jimmy?" She had not directed that question to anyone in particular but Cindy still felt that everyone was looking at her. At first she thought that her fury had driven Jimmy to silence, but now it seemed less and less likely that he was still inside her head. If Poultra really were afraid of Jimmy, the phobifier could have taken him out of her mind as easily as it had put him in. But if that were the case, where was he? Had her emotions somehow interfered with getting him out safely? Or had the process that had put him into her mind been irreversible?

High overhead and unseen by any of the crowd below the Air Force helicopter circled the giant chicken. General Abercrombie gave a low whistle. "This is definitely not a rumor, lieutenant," he called above the noise of the rotors.

"But what are we going to do about it, sir?" his aide shouted back.

"The only thing a soldier does in the face of a determined enemy," the general replied grimly. "We attack."

"Attack? With what?"

The general gave her a determined look. "An all-out missile strike. Let's scramble the jets."

"But there are people down there!" the lieutenant objected. "If one of the missiles goes wide –"

"You can't spell 'missile' without 'miss', lieutenant," General Abercrombie said grimly. "Things like that happen."

"I strongly recommend that we consider another course of action, sir!"

"Recommendation noted. Now let's call in those jets. We already paid for them. Might as well get some use out of them while they still have some resale value left."

The lieutenant tried one more time. "Sir, can we at least notify the civilians to evacuate the area before we call in the jets? Give them time to get to a safer area?"

The general sighed. "I don't know about your tactics, lieutenant. The book says never to do anything predictable and evacuation sounds just like what that crowd would be expecting us to do." He looked sharply at his aide, who was now viciously banging her helmeted head against the side of the cabin. "Still have that headache?"

"Yes," she answered, but quickly got back to the subject. "I'm pretty sure that those tactics were for situations involving the enemy."

The general scanned the crowd below. "They aren't wearing our uniforms," he noted. "Are you sure that they're all ours?"

"Positive, sir," she stated emphatically. "Except for the giant chicken," she added.

The general nodded, albeit reluctantly. "Well, all right. Let's set her down and get the civilians out of here first. But after that the jets come in hard and fast. I'm going to turn that prodigious piece of poultry into more pieces that a Colonel Chicken's Dinner Deal."

End of Chapter 13

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