Turduckgeddhen.

Last November:

The farmers all scratched their heads. One moment, there had been fields of turkeys, ready for the Thanksgiving slaughter. The next morning, the fields were empty. The fields of fowl had taken flight without a whisper.

Desperate, the people looked to ducks and hens, hoping for a Thanksgiving Duckhen. All for naught. They too had vanished in the night.

But the chickens had not escaped. They would be the sacrifice for this year's feast. So many chickens. So many, many chickens...

Also, Thanksgiving Ham would become a thing this year.

This November:

New flocks of turkeys had been mustered, with great difficulty. Many caught and captured from the wild. Lured with food and fattened for the coming feast. They had believed themselves safe. Elsewhere, other Thanksgiving plans were being laid. (Yes, there were several actual eggs being laid as well. The double entendre was unintentional, but here we are...)

In a thicket, far away from the prying eyes of humans, they had gathered.

Obadiah Clement Gobbles raised his feathers high.

“My brothers and sisters! I call to you!”

Edna Gobblesworth squawked suddenly. Obadiah sighed.

“Yes Edna, what is it?”

“Oh nothing. I just laid an egg. Sorry...”

(See? Speaking of laying an egg...)

Obadiah cleared his throat.

“We have been the victims of countless slaughter for far too long! This year, we will take the humans to the killing fields!”

There was a roar of excitement from the crowd! Obadiah noticed, with some irritation that his brother-in-law, Sheamus McGizzard was reading. Again. Obadiah cleared his throat once more.

“Am I disturbing your reading?” Obadiah asked.

“Oh no! It's just that if we're going to kill all the humans in preparation for Thanksgiving, then we should prepare and eat them, right?” Sheamus answered.

“Where did you find a cook book with recipes on humans?” Obadiah flummoxed.

“It's a cook book by a Chef Jeffrey Dahmer,” Sheamus replied.

“One of the good guys I see. We shall spare him in our coming Holy War,” Obadiah said with great fervor.

“He's already dead I'm afraid.”

“How?”

“The humans executed him after finding out that he ate people.”

Obadiah spat.

“The savages...”

Obadiah turned to the crowd.

“See? They kill their own kind?! The geniuses are hunted amongst their people! But no more! Today, we shall reconcile!”

“Where will we attack first?” Edna asked.

Obadiah's eyes narrowed.

“The altar of their unholy feast. We shall attack the dinner itself!”

They rushed the house quickly. The family was not ready for the righteous assault of the Turkey Revolutionaries. Obadiah entered to find the gobblers poking through the remains of Thanksgiving Dinner. He cleared his throat.

“This is just beginning. This was our test and you have done well my friends-”

“Whoa, is that cranberry sauce?”

“Carl?”

Carl looked up.

“Focus.”

Carl nodded, quietly scooping a mouthful of cranberry sauce into his mouth when he certain Obadiah was looking elsewhere. In fact, the whole group of turkey raiders began to spread out so they could take turns sneaking nibbles when Obadiah was looking elsewhere.

“It is up to us, the righteous, the strong, the...okay, I see you. You're not sneaky. You know what? Alright, finish the left overs and we'll try this again in thirty minutes.” Obadiah said with a sigh.

“Yay!” the turkeys cried and dove onto the table head first. Carl moved Mr. Denis' head out of the way to get at his mashed potatoes.

“Guys, this gravy is delicious. Man, it's too bad that we had to kill Mrs. Denis...”

The other turkeys stopped.

“Carl, you can't think like that. They are our enemy,” Jethro said.

“But... the gravy...”

“Sacrifices have to be made.”

Carl nodded sadly and finished the last of his potatoes.

Outside they gathered. Obadiah, the old and revered, waiting patiently. He put away a package of candy corn at their approach.

“Aren't those things bad for your blood sugar?” Jethro asked. Obadiah puffed up and looked importantly off into the distance.

“We're at war Jethro. I could die tomorrow. If I do, I'm dying with a belly full of candy corn. I will meet God with it's layered deliciousness still on my beak.”

“So where is the next attack?” Jethro asked.

Obadiah narrowed his eyes even more this time.

“The supermarket...”

“Clean up on aisle 3...” the sad, dull voice droned into the monitor. Another equally sad, dull individual wandered to said Aisle 3 in answer to the call.

“We're practically putting them out of their misery,” Jethro Featherbottom noted. Obadiah nodded.

Mrs. Greyknickers (human) was wandering through the aisles, grumbling about the lack of turkeys in the store when the sudden gobbling caught her attention. She looked up to see the menacing gang of turkeys making their way down Aisle 3.

“They're just letting the daft birds wander the store now?” she said. She went to a clerk.

“I'd like to purchase that fat one there,” she said, pointing at Obadiah.

Obadiah raised his battle ax.

“Fat? I am robust! Attack!” he crowed.

And the turkeys leaped to the fray. The dim witted humans were too busy stumbling over each other and reaching to pull coupons from their wallets to put up much of a fight. Within minutes the battle was over. Obadiah raised his bloody ax high to the whoops and war cries of his fellow gobblers.

With bloody feathers, he reached into the nearest pool of blood and drew on his war paint. He looked up at his comrades. Several gave cheers of ascent. Jethro looked confused.

“That looks like Celtic war paint. Only red,” Jethro noted.

“I didn't want to appropriate the culture of the Native Americans. They've been through enough. I don't want our cause to end up just being a mockery of their culture” Obadiah answered. Jethro scratched his head.

“You're worried about being PC? We're turkeys. Overcoming a holocaust from the humans,” Jethro said, thoroughly at a loss. Obadiah bristled and made a sudden sucking noise of air across his beak.

“Also, I don't like the word holocaust. Unfair to the Jews. I think Turkey genocide sounds better,” Obadiah continued. Many of the turkeys looked from one to another in mutual bewilderment. Obadiah saw that he was losing momentum, so he raised his ax.

“Paint yourselves in the blood of our enemies, and on to the next battle!” he cried. There was a cry of ascent again. Blood lust was an easy sell to this crowd apparently. It's all about creating demand. He remembered hearing that somewhere. It seemed to fit now.

While he was musing, he heard a plastic lid flopping over and over again. He looked over to see Carl pushing up the lid, grabbing a pretzel, and ducking back before it slammed shut again.

“Carl?”

“Hmm?”

“We're leaving.”

The next supermarket was a more difficult operation. The humans had mounted a defense this time and Carl had taken a nasty lump from a thrown can of creamed corn. They had made a barricade inside the beer cooler which the turkeys could not penetrate.

After several failed attempts, Jethro had suggested turning down the temperature of the cooler. Soon they had all the frozen humans they could ask for. Jethro was ready to march on the next location. Obadiah held up a hand.

“Not yet,” Obadiah said quietly. The turkeys all looked to their leader expectantly.

“Get the plastic wrap.”

The next obstacle was to take down a Superstore. And thus they had to march on Mal-Wart, the center of assorted useless items for humans. And the end of the road for so many turkeys.

In the outskirts of human kind, the battles were easier. But against the corporate giant of Mal-Wart where lots of money was at stake, humans suddenly mobilized in greater numbers and with weapons in it's defense.

“They seem to place greater importance on their strongholds if there are larger, shinier lights involved,” Jethro noted. Obadiah nodded.

“And where the people have shinier vehicles,” Sheamus added. Obadiah nodded again.

He looked into the parking lot of Mal-Wart to see many humans armed with guns. The same guns that had slaughtered so many of his kind. This would not be the end. The gobblers would march.

And march they did. War paint on, hatchets in hand, and fancy hats upon their heads. (Several of the turkeys had decided that a certain panache was required for every revolution, and had dubbed themselves the Dandies. Obadiah had allowed it. It seemed to make them happy.)

The humans leveled their guns at the approaching turkeys.

“How do they expect to win Sarge? They have to know they're walking into a blood bath,” Officer Simms asked. Sarge was chewing on his cigar.

“Marching into the face of certain doom, with their heads held high. They may be our enemy, but they have my respect,” Sarge replied.

“Sir, they're turkeys on the war path,” Simms added. Sarge nodded.

“Ready! Aim!” Sarge began, when the fluttering of hundreds of wings could be heard. Sarge and his tactical squad looked to their right to see a sea of hens approaching, rolling pins and large wooden spoons in hand.

“It's just like in the books...” Sarge said quietly.

He looked around at his men, who were now staring at him oddly.

“It's alright men. Simms, you and those on the left, fire straight ahead. The rest of you, aim at the hens.”

Another fluttering of wings turned their attention. At the other end of the parking lot, thousands of ducks descended upon the battle field. The men looked around, now surrounded.

“We'll have reinforcements from inside mall security, and back up should be on it's way. We can hold here until they arrive,” Sarge called out to his men. Simms tapped Sarge on the shoulder.

“What is it Simms?” Sarge asked.

“The ducks...” he began.

“Spit it out,” Sarge pressed.

“They've brought geese with them.”

Sarge turned to see the geese, tall necked and hissing. He pulled back the hammer on his gun.

“We're all doomed,” was all that was heard. Everything else was lost in an explosion of gunfire, feathers, and a lot of swearing.

After the battle, Obadiah called the Hen, Duck and Goose leaders to him.

“We have consolidated our forces. We are stronger than ever. Now we will-” but his speech was cut short by the sound of squealing. All faces turned to see a multitude of pigs and hogs.

Alistair, leader of the hogs stepped forward.

“You bastards left us to die!” he cried out. The hogs and pigs all squealed in unison, raising their machetes and short swords in the air.

Obadiah stared for a moment. He looked down, thinking of all the hogs that had died in the previous Thanksgiving. He sighed.

“Our sins are more easily remembered than our good deeds...” he said quietly, looking up at his new foe. A foe that didn't have to be. Then the hogs shouted and the charge commenced.

Far away, on the distant shores of the Gulf Coast, thousands of tiny red claws clapped in unison.

Guillaume de Blois took the podium.

“Crawfish, shrimp, crabs! Lend me your ears!”

~Fin