I was inspired early in the morning to write two different stories based on this title. The other can be found here.
The Deviled Eggs
By
William DeGeest
Title by Ashely Schaaf Botha
Jacob Ledbetter was a simple man who lived a simple life on his simple little farm place. He did however have a not so simple problem. Deviled eggs.
Not the popular appetizer made with hard-boiled eggs, but what could only be described as possessed chicken eggs. Little ovoid shapes with two obscene feet sticking out through the bottom, wreaking havoc on Jacobs meager few acres. They chased the cats, head-butted the dog and mocked the milk cow. Little chittering noises came from inside the shells, often sounding like demonic giggles. The chickens who laid these abominations were in a constant state of confusion.
Many theories were bandied about by the local. Chicken coop build over ancient burial site? Gateway to hell? Government experiment gone wrong? Sleeping elder god, waiting to rise once more and make sandwiches out of the locals?
Jacob doubted the last one. After all, his eyeballs were still intact and his dreams had not driven him mad.
And for his part, Jacob was surprisingly undisturbed about it. To a man like him, dirt-poor, small-time farmer whose wardrobe consisted only of t-shirts, bib overalls and work boots, it was just one more hardship to be endured. Droughts, insects, blight, and the occasional coyote attack were the norm for this life, what could hell-spawn chicks do that was worse? Add that the fact most of their antics never rose above the level of mischievousness, Jacob could deal.
Like the time the pick-up wouldn’t start and he found one stuck in the exhaust pipe. He grabbed it by its scale covered, long talon feet and yanked it out. It gave two smokey coughs (not sure how that works, Jacob thought) and staggered off.
Once a priest came knocking on the door, offering to help get rid of this evil that had befallen Jacob’s place. Jacob shrugged his shoulders and said, “Sure, why not.”
Fifteen minutes later the priest ran screaming off the property, at least a dozen eggs clinging to him. Jacob swore he heard them calling the fleeing man of the cloth “mommy” as he hoofed it as fast as he could go. The priest would send someone for his car.
Jacob awoke with a start at three in the morning one time and clicked on his bedside lamp to see a sea of bipedal ovals, each turned up toward him as if looking at him with smooth, white, eyeless faces. Jacob stared back.
This stand-off lasted for a good fifteen minutes before he heard a twitter from one of the eggs in the back row. It started to twitch and let out an “Ahhaaahaaaahaaaaahaaaa!” as it ran out of the house. Soon the rest followed suit except for one who continued to look up at Jacob. Jacob raised his eyebrows and made a sweeping gesture with his finger to the emptiness surrounding the lone creature. It turned left, then right, lowered its shell and took a long arc out the bedroom door, at one point looking up at Jacob and shaking its “head.”
“I guess they cracked before I did,” Jacob said with a yawn, turning off the light and going back to sleep.
This went on for many years. The eggs never broke open to reveal anything other than the raptor like feet. Their numbers seemed to stay pretty consistent through-out the years, even though more were laid all the time. Jacob didn’t what to think about where the others went.
Finally, one fall morning, Jacob did not get out of bed. His heart had stopped during the night. The dog, realizing he had no one to be loyal to anymore, hightailed it out of there as fast as he could. When people saw him running down Main Street, everyone knew Jacob was gone.
There as a big turnout for his funeral, despite fears of unwanted guests. Thankfully none showed. Jacob’s animals were sold and taken away, the chickens never laying another egg and allowed to live out their lives pecking on the lawn of the widow Marshall. The cow was taken by a local petting zoo and was still occasionally picked on. The cats were cats. They found their own new homes and were fine.
As for the critters, no one knew for sure. Once the coop was torn down, they seemed to be lost and walk around the farm with no purpose and wandered off in all directions. But for the locals, most figured they had stuck around to create more disorder.
And in that town and the surrounding farms the people who lived there would get funny looks from outsiders after their cars broke down and their phones stopped working and all manner of inconveniences would befall them.
“Those god-damned deviled eggs,” they would say.
