Argh! Clyde's beak hurt more than a lightning blast did. After a couple of hits, I could swear I heard something start to crack.

I needed to get the hell away from him.

I brought my frying pan back out of my inventory, and took a really hard swing at the chicken's head.

Bang!

Amazingly, the chicken staggered off of me, shaking its head. There were freaking Sparks coming off of his head as he shook it.

I looked at my frying pan in awe. had my frying pan suddenly become a weapon against this thing?

Then I started thinking about science class. I wasn’t a good student, but I did remember something about grounding. Not that science was really having that big of an influence in this new post-apocalyptic world, but maybe when you were touching the chicken–or it was touching you–maybe the electromagnetic force field that had been protecting it didn't work?

Maybe.

Okay, interesting thought, but I pushed it back in my head where I kept my dry erase board for my brilliant plans (not) and scrambled to my feet, trying to lay on every bit of my shortest-as-shit legs gnome speed.

I was almost to the end of the alley when I heard the chicken start to rev up again.

Bu-bu-BUCK-AK!

Lightning struck at my heels, causing dazzling sparks to splash outward around me as I kept on running for my life.

And, as I turned the corner and headed in the direction I thought my friends were probably going, I heard an angry crowing, and then some more bucks.

Jesus…

I just hoped Clyde the chicken would stay in the alley and stop chasing me. But then again, last time he didn't stop chasing me and Teddy.

I got to marinate on that thought for about three seconds before I saw Mr. Ripper's truck barreling through the closest intersection. I also just barely saw Teddy's cloak sweep around the corner of Wabash Avenue, the building that used to have the Masonic Temple on it. The building was still there, and completely in one piece.

A second later the wreckage of a car beside me exploded in a shower of electrical sparks.

I swerved away from the explosion and headed in the opposite direction as my friends. They had enough to handle with just Mr. Ripper's truck.

Another lightning bolt truck the asphalt right beside my feet. I felt the electricity bite at me.

Oh, yeah… Teddy had been swerving last time to get away from him.

Duh!

So I started swerving, between cars, down between a building and a crumpled wall—through the crumpled wall, and then down the street and past another burnt out car that was sitting there, and then–

BANG!!!

I flew up in the air, my entire terracotta body vibrating with the electric charge of a full on lightning strike, and I spun off down the street and crashed straight through a plate glass window.

I guess Clyde the chicken had been working on his aim since last time.

Fuuuck…

I tried to move, but the most I could get my gnome body to do was shiver.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

And then I heard the damn chicken bucking and clucking, as well as talon-like feet scratched at the asphalt just outside the window I was lying under.

I held perfectly still. I needed that damn thing to fucking go away. I mean really, is it too much to ask a villain to go away after they've kicked your butt?

Well, I guess that would be a little too convenient.

Clyde thrust his head and through the window. The chicken clucked menacingly as his head turned to the left and then slowly to the right.

Don't look down… please God don't look down.

Chicken made a sound like a recoiling viper, and then it freaking crowd. The sound reverberated off the walls of the room I was in, and it freaking reverberated through me.

Like a motherfucking death knell.

Side note, I now knew what they meant in English class about death knells. Mrs. G and Mrs. C would have been proud.

Clyde's head finally retreated through the broken window.

I lay there, listening to the scratches of the chicken's feet, and its garbled mix of bucks and clucks. Slowly, oh too slowly, those sounds faded away as the damn chicken pranced away.

I sighed inwardly. As hard as my shell might be, that chicken had been so close to cracking me open. Or, at least it felt that way. I really need to keep away from that damn chicken.

I sat up, pulled myself to my feet—poked my head out the opening of the broken window, checking both ways for Clyde the electro chicken—and then crawled out the broken window and onto the street.

I needed to find my friends. Hopefully they’d evaded Mr. Ripper and his truck. That's all we needed, was another freaking villain in this town.

A minute later I was jogging through town, in the general direction that I remember seeing Ellie and Teddy getting chased by Mr. Ripper's truck.

I didn't hear the gunning of the truck's engine, I didn't hear any crashes or booms, and fortunately I didn't hear the screams of my friends.

All in all, that was both a blessing and a curse. Silence could mean that they got away from the truck. It also could mean that they had been cornered by the truck and murder/pulverized. I could be finding their mangled corpses any moment now.

I shook my head. God this world just filled your head with the worst thoughts.

I turned the corner about a block down from the Mars Savings and Loan, and spotted Teddy and Ellie atop its roof, looking down on me.

I felt a wave of relief, thinking that they were safe. But then the question, where is Mr. Ripper's truck? Popped into my head.

On cue, the truck's engine roared from right behind me, as it careened around the corner I’d just jogged around, and slammed right into me.

All I can say is, thankfully I didn't get embedded in the truck's grill or bumper, or any other part. But the impact did send me skittering down the street like a kicked can.

I was still vibrating and feeling the pain of getting hit by a truck—which hurts like hell, even with my nearly impervious gnome body—as the damn truck then ran me over. I got size 17 all-weather radials right in the face.

It felt like my terracotta head was about to explode.

But luckily that didn't happen, and I shook my head and pulled myself to my feet before the damn truck could try to back up over me, too.

The red truck tore around the street, making a U-turn, coming back towards me as I staggered up onto the sidewalk and behind a parking meter. For a moment I thought Mr. Ripper was going to veer up onto the sidewalk after me. So, I stayed behind the parking meter for protection. But instead, Mr. Ripper’s truck glided slowly up to where I stood, one of the blacked-out windows rolling down to reveal…

Oh god, what the hell was I looking at?

After my eyes screamed to never see again, I realized I was looking at the rotted and still moist and bloody remains of Mr. Ripper himself.

His corpse didn't move, but the engine revved, and then the window went back up. The damn truck took off down the street with a squeal of tires, leaving rubber scented smoke in its wake. The throaty, metallic roar of the engine sounded suspiciously like a diabolical laugh.

Holly fucking shitballs…

When I looked up to the roof of the Mars Savings and Loan again, I saw that Teddy and Ellie were gone. I almost took off to go find them, but then I realized that they were probably coming down to meet up with me. So I just stayed where I was.

And anyways, I'd just been through a pretty horrifying moment there. I thought I needed a moment to try to digest it.

I couldn't get the site of old Mr. Ripper out of my head. Had he died in his truck? Had he died in his truck before the alien invasion? Was he now part of his truck? Or was his truck now part of him?

I shook my head, the Stephen King level of ick making my head go all fuzzy.

Ellie and Teddy showed up by my side less than two minutes later, their weapons drawn, probably just in case Mr. Ripper’s truck doubled back on us.

“That was…” Teddy began.

“Totally fucked up,” Ellie finished for him.

I shook my head. “You have no idea.” And then I told them what I saw when the truck window had rolled down. When I was done, I turned and started to walk down the street. A few feet later I realized I was walking alone. I looked back at my friends, and their faces were shocked masks of horror.

“You mean,” Teddy said, his face so pale I could see his freckles really prominently. “He's really in there?”

I nodded.

“It's kind of fitting,” Ellie said. “He loved that truck more than anything.”

Just ick.

A world of ick.