The Death of the Cocks and Hens: A TL

Ring-around-the Rosie,
A Pocket full of Posy,
Ashes,
Ashes,
We all fall down.

-Nursery Rhyme

That wasn't any act of God.
That was an act of pure human fuckery.

-The Stand, Stephen King


January 3, 1918
Fort Riley, Kansas, USA

A fox crept along the fence that contained the chickens, controlling its breathing. Any sound would alert either the chickens, or the humans. Those humans had high grade weapons here.
It crossed a small trough of water, to a hole in the fence the size of a man's fist. Through the hole, the fox forced its head. Then shoulders and the rest followed. The fence barely rattled, not even alerting the fox.

It hobbled along diagonally across the pen to the chicken coop. The Fox lifted its nose and whiffed the air, letting in the succulent smell of chicken, ready for the consuming.
Pit-Pat! Pit-Pat! The Fox trotted up the wooden plank leading to a buffet of poultry. Bird surrounded him on every side.

Oddly enough, he waited, silently to select his first target. A brilliant rooster slept secluded, wheezing like a dying comrade on the roadside. The Fox licked its chops, smacking its maw together like it was fantasizing eating the chicken.

The fox sat back on its haunches, and pounced.

The Cock had little time to respond before the fox's maw had closed down upon its jugular vein. The hens awoke cawing loudly, rustling their feathers, and taking flight. The foxes darted for the exit followed by frenzied fowl. The fox squeezed through the hole, and attempted the pull the rooster through. The cock turned out to be too fat for the hole it was entering.

Thinking quickly, it dug under the hole, and pulled the fat rooster through the hole, escaping with its query. Men came out to inspect what had been taken, and the fox was long gone. The farmer did not see the enlarged hole in his fence, and presumed the cock had been taken by one of those damn local kids.
After the farmer reentered the house, a stray dog ambled upon the scene, examining the gaping hole.

When the morning came, every single chicken was dead.
...
Yes, I am going to have much fun with this TL, what with the innuendo, and all.

This is massacre is a POD with a world without __________. It was so ingenious, I wondered how someone else hadn't come up with the idea.

Comments, critiques, and flames are welcome.
 
Wow, this'll have immense ripples. It's strange how many people forget it, given that it was the worst pandemic in modern times.
 
Wow, this'll have immense ripples. It's strange how many people forget it, given that it was the worst pandemic in modern times.

Remember, you were either filling graves with flu-victims or soldiers fresh from France, it didn't matter to the average (insert nationality) which it was, it was a body all the same.
Plus, if what my grandparents said was true, children still died of diptheria and other diseases now under control.

thanks for the comment. ^^
 
I may use the Ashes to Ashes quote in one of my TLs updates that will involve a nuclear attack. You don't mind me copying your idea, do you?
 
The Death of a Horse

The Journey of a thousand steps begins with just one.
-Lao Tzu

Our Species eats the wounded Ones
-Kinslayer, Nightwish

January 4, 1918
Fort Riley, Kansas, USA

Dr. Schreiner was examining the carnage. Although it was supposedly business as usual, it was hard not to resist seeing the men have fun. Even if it was fun derived from making chicken jokes around the feathers and flesh of the dead poultry.
Some damn stray have arrived and ripped the shit out of the chickens last night. It was a brutal scene, with bony-skinned legs jutting from a bleeding pile of feathers. A decapitated Chicken head was lying off to the side of the pen.
One of the men pointed at it and exclaimed, "Poor ole' Chicken Little's a'gone wit'out his head!"
Schreiner didn't get the humor, but some of the men around chuckled and snickered.
"Shut the Hell up!" barked Albert Gitchell, a company cook, "We were serving some chicken tonight!"
The Men now began to laugh out loud. "Before or after the dogs wiped it's maw on it?" Someone shouted.
Now almost all the men were all out guffawing.
At the same time, a man led a horse out upon the dirt road leading to Fort Riley. The leader was young, as all the men were, but definitely seem a bit immature physically, to be off to The Trenches. The chestnuts horse didn't care the child had no idea what lay in store for the men in Fort Riley. It wouldn't have truly cared about any of the men in camp.

Quince Hawthorne, however, came over to the young horse leader, clutching his sides laughing. The drunken idiot couldn't tell which side of the Mississippi he was from, let alone when to stop laughing from a goddamn joke. Hawthorne had tears in his eyes, wheezing. One might suspect Laughter was a form of torture where that idiot hailed. He finally straightened to his back, and swung his hand, as if to pat the little boy on the back. Instead, it struck the Horse in the hindquarters. The empathy and serenity in the horse’s eyes disappeared, replaced by blind panic and disregard for safety. The Horse whinnied, and the laughing men silenced.
The Chestnut horse tore at the sky with its hooves. One struck the poor young fellow directly in the temple. When Quince turned and ran, a hoof stuck his back. Blood from both men could be visibly seen amongst the muddy path.
Schreiner ran over to the aide of the men, only to be forced back by the bucking horse. The Lieutenant pulled a revolver from its sheath, and a single ‘BANG!’ resounded through the air. Whinnies and bucking ceased. The horse collapsed, with an obvious cavity opened up in the right side of the horse’s head. The Lieutenant gawked at the scene, calling Schreiner over.

Schreiner could feel eyes following him to the two men. Quince was alive, crawling away, bawling, with a limp left arm. Blood was oozing from a horseshoe shaped tear in his uniform. The Kid on the other hand, had a similar U-shaped wound, except stretching from the corner of his left eye to the back of his head. The Men all stared, almost in stupor.

As both men were brought into the medical center, someone sent for a truck to take the horse’s corpse away…

______________________

Updates will progressively longer as the butterflies grow...So butterflyerific!
Comments, Flames, and Critiques are welcome.
 
Oh shit...equine influenza? There's some speculation (not much I admit) that the Spanish flu may have co-evolved with equine influenza, so maybe something's going here.

For those of you unaware if it, equine influenza can be as virulent and deadly as any human strain, sometimes more (e.g. the great outbreak of 1872, which had a near 100% infection rate, and up to 10% mortality rate).
 
I don't get it yet. A horse gone mad?

Well the POD os the chickens being eaten by a stray dog, and I have proceeded to wipeout two potential sources of Spanish Flu at Fort Riley. I thought I was going to Completely stop the Flu, but my research says it will be delayed...

Oh shit...equine influenza? There's some speculation (not much I admit) that the Spanish flu may have co-evolved with equine influenza, so maybe something's going here.

For those of you unaware if it, equine influenza can be as virulent and deadly as any human strain, sometimes more (e.g. the great outbreak of 1872, which had a near 100% infection rate, and up to 10% mortality rate).

Yeah, I read about the 1872 outbreak. Influenza over all is a nasty bug
 
Yes, A Bump.

I have decided to lead this TL in a Direction I had not previously planned...Expect an update soon.
 
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