CH 10: Greg

Day 10 of the End Times. The chickens are organized now.

It started with the fridge.

Not the normal fridge, or the garage fridge where Nana stored her mysterious jam jars labeled "For External Use Only (Probably)", but the fridge under the laundry sink. The one sealed behind a chain of garlic ropes and a "DO NOT OPEN UNDER PENALTY OF PIE" sign.

Carl opened it because he was looking for ketchup.

Instead, he found a mason jar filled with glowing blue liquid that was humming softly—possibly in Bee Gees falsetto—and had a post-it labeled: "MOONSHINE: DO NOT DRINK (AGAIN) – Also, Sorry About Greg."

Carl stared at it for a beat, then closed the fridge. Slowly. Like someone trying not to set off a mousetrap with their soul.

A quiet cluck echoed in the laundry room.

"Hey, uh… Nana?" Carl called. "Why is your moonshine glowing and vibrating?"

From the kitchen, a spatula clattered to the floor. Then:

"YOU OPENED THE CHICKEN TREATY FRIDGE!?"

The floor creaked. Carl didn't move.

Suddenly, Nana burst in wearing her gardening gloves, a tool belt full of kitchen utensils, and a shirt that said "I SURVIVED THE 2007 Turkey Incident" with blood-red sequin letters.

"What did you touch? Be specific, boy."

"I… opened the fridge."

"That wasn't a fridge. That was a containment unit."

"For what?"

Nana didn't answer. She slapped a big red button on the wall labeled "DEFCON BOK-BOK."

Sirens wailed. Somewhere upstairs, a xylophone version of The Imperial March began to play.

---

The Battle Plan

Fifteen minutes later, Carl was crouching behind a line of overturned wheelbarrows, gripping a pickle-juice-loaded Super Soaker.

Toby was beside him, in full cardboard armor with a duct-taped colander on his head and war paint made from melted crayons. "Greg's gonna retaliate," he whispered grimly. "He always retaliates."

"Greg?" Carl muttered.

"Their leader," Toby said. "An ex-domesticated Rhode Island Red with a dark past. He wears a bottlecap vest and walks like he's seen things."

Carl leaned over and squinted through a pair of binoculars fashioned from two paper towel rolls. In the backyard, the birdbath had been overtaken.

On it stood a hulking chicken with an eye-patch, flanked by two smaller hens carrying what looked suspiciously like sharpened popsicle sticks.

"I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe these are intelligent birds."

Nana dropped beside them with a net made of tangled bras and spatula handles. "Well, believe it, sugar. That one laid an egg on my Glock. That's a message."

"I'm sorry—didn't you once teach kindergarten?"

"Yes, and this is more violent," Nana replied, snapping open a grappling hook made from a fishing rod and an old eggbeater.

Carl sighed. "I miss normal problems. I used to argue with people about printer settings."

---

Operation: Egg-spionage

The plan was simple. Distract the enemy chickens with cornflakes, lure them away from the pantry door, and reclaim the stolen Pantry Key, which Greg reportedly snatched during a "routine cluck-by."

Ellie took point.

She wore pink fairy wings and combat boots, wielding a glittery plastic wand duct-taped to a flyswatter. Her war face was a crayon-scrawled frown with one glitter tear under her eye. Hardcore stuff.

She tiptoed across the yard, dropping a trail of cornflakes while humming the Mission: Impossible theme.

The chickens watched her.

Greg tilted his head. Ellie curtsied.

Then she sprinted back to the house.

The hens followed slowly at first… then faster. One did a cartwheel. Another vaulted over the gnome fort.

"NOW!" Toby shouted, pointing dramatically.

Carl leapt into action, barrel-rolling over a lawn chair and spraying a mist of pickle brine in wide arcs.

"PECK THIS, GREG!"

The lead hen dodged, then caught a pickle in her beak and ate it, eyes locked with Carl's. "Oh God, they've adapted!"

"Don't break eye contact!" Nana barked from a treehouse sniper nest. "They sense weakness!"

---

Meanwhile, Inside

Ellie darted through the hallway toward the pantry, where the key was allegedly being kept under a broken toaster oven now guarded by a rooster named Kevin.

She threw a decoy egg wrapped in a Pokémon card down the hall.

Kevin squawked. Kevin charged.

Ellie ducked, rolled, and used a glitter grenade (Nana's homemade bath bomb) to blind him long enough to grab the key and retreat. Kevin screeched and flapped into a cupboard.

"Safe!" she cried, slamming the pantry shut behind her and locking it with a click.

"Did you just check in like it's baseball!?" Carl yelled from outside, covered in feathers and what he hoped was only mustard.

---

Aftermath

The backyard was a mess of feathers, cornflake dust, and one very confused lawn gnome wearing a chicken as a hat. Carl limped inside with a frozen pea bag strapped to his ankle.

Nana made celebratory hot cocoa with canned whipped cream and a splash of "emergency bourbon."

Toby updated the Chicken Watch Logbook. "Day 10: We won. Barely. Greg has retreated to the hedges. But he'll be back. With reinforcements."

Ellie colored a victory sign on the wall that read: "We Do Not Negotiate With Chickens", complete with sparkles and one very dramatic drawing of Kevin the rooster exploding.

Carl sighed as he sipped his cocoa. "So let me get this straight… we have no electricity, no government, no Amazon delivery—but the real threat is a poultry cartel?"

Nana shrugged. "You want boring? Move to the suburbs."

Carl blinked. "We are in the suburbs."

"Exactly."

---

By the time the hot cocoa ran out and the feather dust settled, Greg the Chicken had retreated behind the compost bins. His vest was a little lopsided, his eye patch somehow more dramatic, and his war clucks echoed through the neighborhood like a tiny, feathery general promising vengeance.

"He's plotting something," Toby muttered from his lookout spot inside the hallway linen closet, which he now referred to as The Bunker.

Carl groaned and rotated his ankle, still wrapped in frozen peas. "He's a chicken, Toby."

"Correction," said Nana, stirring a pot of leftover chili while simultaneously loading a mousetrap with peanut butter and glitter, "he's my chicken."

The room fell silent.

Carl blinked. Ellie dropped her crayon. Toby gasped loud enough to inhale a sock.

"Wait, what?" Carl finally said. "Are you saying… you know Greg?"

Nana sighed. "Not know. Trained. Back in the early days. Back before the world ended and the HOA still had power."

---

The Secret Chicken Past

"Back then," Nana said, putting down her chili spoon and slipping into her dramatic backstory voice, "I ran a side gig. Chickens for hire. Guerrilla tactics. Backyard stealth raids. Egg-based sabotage. I called them 'Feather Ops.'"

"You ran a paramilitary poultry program?" Carl said slowly.

"Only on weekends."

Toby was glowing. "This is the coolest thing I've ever heard in my life."

Ellie raised her hand. "Did you give them names?"

"Greg. Kevin. Mildred. Cluck Norris. I taught them infiltration, ground peck assault, and distraction clucks. Greg was… special. Smart. Focused. Too focused."

Nana stared into the middle distance. "He laid a grenade once. Well. Technically it was a boiled egg with a thumbtack in it, but the principle was sound."

Carl rubbed his temples. "So the eye-patched bird leading backyard raids against us… is your former elite poultry commando turned rogue?"

"Yup."

"Why is everything in this apocalypse weirder than the last?"

---

A Question of Negotiation

"Can't we just… talk to him?" Carl offered. "Make peace?"

Nana narrowed her eyes. "We do not negotiate with chickens."

"But you literally trained him! Surely there's—"

"NO." Nana stomped a slippered foot. "You think I taught him trust-falls and dust bath etiquette? No! I taught that bird how to ambush a UPS truck."

Carl stared. "Wait. That was him?"

"Yes," Nana said grimly. "That's why they stopped delivering to this street. He wore a fake mustache and everything."

Toby turned a page in his Chicken Watch Logbook and drew a star. "Greg is legend."

Carl looked outside. Greg was still there, perched on the broken swing, dramatically silhouetted against the sunset. In the wind, his feathers flared like a cape.

"This is the dumbest standoff in history," Carl muttered.

---

Ellie, however, had a plan.

"I think Greg's just misunderstood," she said, digging into her art bin and pulling out a rainbow-colored feather boa, a kazoo, and her best sparkly stickers.

"What… are you doing?" Carl asked.

"I'm gonna talk to him. Girl to bird."

Nana gasped. "Ellie, no! He's a rebel! A renegade! A rooster with a grudge!"

"He's a chicken with a vest," Ellie replied. "I think I can handle it."

She marched outside before anyone could stop her.

---

Greg didn't move when Ellie approached.

He stood there, feathers ruffling in the wind, bottlecap vest glinting under the fading sunlight like a small-scale warlord in a Target parking lot.

Ellie knelt down, kazoo in hand. "Hi Greg. My name's Ellie. I know you're mad. I'd be mad too if someone put a mousetrap on your coop."

Greg took a step closer.

"I drew you something," she said, holding up a crayon portrait of Greg with sparkly wings and a crown. "You're important. But you don't have to fight anymore."

Greg stared. Then slowly… he nodded.

From the porch, Carl whispered, "No. Freaking. Way."

Toby dropped his binoculars. "She tamed him… with art."

Greg strutted forward and—gently—pecked the drawing. Then he made a low warble… and walked away. Not retreating. Just… strolling. Like he'd made peace with himself.

Or, as Nana put it: "He's doing reconnaissance. The battle isn't over."

---

That Night.

They celebrated with stale cookies, canned peaches, and a rousing bedtime story from Nana about the time she faked her own death to avoid jury duty. Ellie placed her drawing of Greg on the fridge.

"I think we're friends now," she said proudly.

Carl wasn't so sure.

Because out the window, under the moonlight, Greg sat on the fence… sharpening a tiny spoon.

---

End of Chapter 10 – Greg

> "Survival wasn't always bullets and beans. Sometimes, it was kazoo diplomacy, glitter grenades, and knowing when not to open the fridge labeled 'Doom.'"

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