[Game Thread] Chapter 2 - The Chicken is Back

Apple Tart, Mr. Bigfoot, and Rasputin are sniffing around the first floor. It's a bit hard to determine where the smell is coming from. It has quickly grown very strong, and seems like it is coming from everywhere. Before you have made it very far, you hear a noise outside - like tires squealing when a car stops to fast on the road - and then a thump-crunch, like the car hit something.

Upstairs, Middie is a bit startled when the bathroom door opens. Jane is there in a bathrobe, but she looks weird. She is still dripping wet, like she didn't towel off. And the humans always towel off before leaving the bathroom. Jane looks down at Middie, but her expression is blank. No smile. No reaching out to give you scritches. She doesn't' say a word. Then she looks away and starts walking towards the stairs.

Jane takes slow, deliberate steps down the stairs. She makes no reaction to Middie brushing by.

At the front door, Rasputin jumps up on a table by the entrance, so he can see out the window. An old pickup truck has run into the mailbox post, knocking the mailbox onto the ground. The truck is a faded blue, but with one red fender. In the cab, a strange looking figure sits behind the wheel. It is person-shaped, but something doesn't look right. It has on a big overcoat, with the collar turned up. A wide-brimmed hat is pulled low, so that its face is completely in shadow. It doesn't seem to be holding onto the steering wheel. In fact, it looks like maybe the coat sleeves are just hanging empty at its sides. You think its shadowed face is pointed in your direction, but its hard to tell.

"The smell is coming from this way!" Mr. Bigfoot suddenly yells, then bolts towards the kitchen. A moment after he disappears from view, you hear him hiss and growl.

Finally, Jane reaches the bottom of the stairs. She pauses briefly, then turns and starts walking towards the door.

Jane's gaze slowly turns to Apple Tart, then moves quickly to Middie when he pricks her.

Meanwhile, more hissing and growling comes from the kitchen. Then, through the doorway, you see Mr. Bigfoot go tumbling by as if something threw him. You don't see where he lands.

Also from the kitchen comes a new sound - clicking, like claws walking on the linoleum, but louder and stranger.

Jane flinches. Her leg seems to almost act on its own, giving Middie a small kick. Although not that bad in the grand scheme of things, it is shocking coming from Jane.But then Jane looks at poor Middie, and recognition seems to cross her face. Then she looks at Apple Tart, and the cute cat's mews seem to finish snapping her out of her daze. Suddenly emotion animates her face. What...? Oh... OH NO! Jane runs over to Middie and kneels down. "I'm so sorry, I don't know what happened..." Then Jane looks around the room and out the window at the darkening sky. Her voice becomes more confused "I don't know what happened. What time is it?"

From the kitchen, the clicking continues, only now it is faster. Too many clicks to be a cat walking across the floor. The sound gets louder and the foul chicken smell gets stronger. A shadow falls across the floor in the doorway, and you know that whatever it is must be right around the corner. For a moment, the clicking stops.

The clicking starts up again, but now very slowly. Click. Click.

Click.

The shadow on the floor grows bigger, until you start to see a physical form coming into view in the doorway.

Jane screams briefly, then seems to stop being able to make sound. Her body is quivering, her eyes wide staring at the thing in the doorway.

It is the cooked chicken.

Or, rather, the carcass of the cooked chicken. The legs are missing - haven been removed and eaten by the humans. Same with the wings. Pieces of meat have been sliced off the sides. What's left looks upside down, if such a thing makes sense in the circumstances: the part that would normally sit on the plate is turned to the ceiling. Out of the other side, a number of small, white tines stick out of the flesh and make contact with the floor. As the thing continues to slowly move, you realize those tines are acting as legs. Looking more closely, you realize that those tines are the chicken's ribs. Somehow, they have grown longer and burst out of the meat. And it is walking on them. The thing has no face, but it does seem to have a mouth - of sorts. The end facing you has an opening - the opening where you've sometimes seen humans stuff things inside before cooking. That orifice is moving, stretching and relaxing. You get a hint that something else is moving inside, just shadowed by this "mouth". It makes a low, gurgling sound.

For a moment, everything is silent and still, then the thing opens its mouth wide and emits a loud, screeching bellow. A very-no-chicken-like fleshy appendage emerges from the mouth, whipping around like a tongue or a tail.

The stench is overwhelming.

What do you do?