Third Month: November

Q3. What is the weirdest thing to happen to you in November?

A3. The Turkey Rebellion.

We found the tapes yesterday. After listening to them in the survivor’s camp, I’ve decided to record their contents and send it out into the world so that someday there may still be a surviving record of what happened back when it all went wrong.

(tape begins, hissing static, sound of rustling movement in the distance, smatterings of whispering)

WOMAN’S VOICE: ...don’t have time… hour, at most…

MAN’S VOICE: ...don’t… scare him…

(sound of papers being shuffled, footsteps approach the recorder, chairs drawn out and people sit)

MAN: Hello Bud. How are you?

BOY’S VOICE (BUD): A little freaked out, but I’ll survive. My sisters and I were playing football with our cousins like we do every Thanksgiving when everything got all weird.

MAN: Can you tell me about the turkey you found this year?

BUD: I’m not in trouble, am I?

WOMAN: No more trouble than the rest of us are. Go ahead and tell us, but do it quickly.

BUD: Okay. It started the day before Thanksgiving. Mom had put off her holiday shopping like always. She puts it off until the last minute every year and then gets really stressed out having to run around the day before trying to find what she needs.

(sound of impatient tapping with a pen quickly muffled)

BUD: So this year, she couldn’t find a turkey. All the stores had been bought out we thought, until we started asking around. It turns out there was some weird shortage this year, turkey farms where all the turkeys went missing. Did you hear about that?

MAN: We’ve heard a couple things, yes.

BUD: Where do you think they all went? Do you think they ran away?

WOMAN: Bud, we don’t have a lot of time here. Look out in that hall. Do you see the red lights flashing? If we opened this door, there’d be a siren you could hear, too. We need you to tell us about the turkey you found.

BUD: Sorry ma’am. So, like I said earlier, my sisters and I like to play football with our cousins on Thanksgiving morning. I was winning. It was my big sister Darcy and my little cousin Jonathan and me versus my little sisters Amy and Susan and Jonathan’s big brother Harry. Normally whatever team Harry’s on wins since he’s so much bigger than the rest of us, but this year I’ve been doing a little bit of growing and--

(sound of alarms ringing in the background as an intercom filled with static interrupts)

INTERCOM: We can only hold them off for another couple of minutes at most! You need to get out of there now!

WOMAN: We need more time!

INTERCOM: We’re trying to keep--

(intercom goes silent, the room is still for a long pause)

MAN: Bud, we don’t have time. We need you to focus here. Tell us about the turkey.

BUD: Are they all right out there? It didn’t sound good. There was a lot of gunfire and noise in the background I could hear.

WOMAN: Bud. The turkey. Tell us. NOW.

BUD: Right, sorry, y’all. So we were playing football and all of a sudden this turkey comes into our yard. For a while we all just stared at each other before the turkey walked right on past us and up to the back door of the house. That’s weird, right?

(pause, silence)

BUD: Well, we thought it was weird, so we followed it. Jonathan thought we should open the door for it, see if it would go inside and, sure enough, it did. Once it got inside, it turned and looked at us. Have y’all ever looked a turkey in the eyes? It’s pretty creepy. They’ve got that weird, blank bird stare thing they do. This one bowed to me, though. He looked like he had something to say. That’s when mom came in. She was pretty mad that we brought a live turkey in the kitchen.

WOMAN: But where did all the other birds come from? One minute there’s one bird bowing in your kitchen and the next there’s millions of them swarming the city.

BUD: Everywhere. The turkeys were hiding in plain sight.

WOMAN: What does that even mean?

BUD: Didn’t you know? They’re shapeshifters. They were blending in with us. Long ago, their pride got the best of them and they were cursed never to use their power again until they had suffered their punishment. For centuries now, they’ve been slaughtered every year at Thanksgiving paying that price and, in the future where they’re from, they’ve been hunted almost to extinction.

WOMAN: This is a waste of time... The future? We’re being invaded by future turkeys?

BUD: A hundred years from now, a turkey is born who is different from the rest. Having been nearly killed off, the curse was finally lifted and this turkey was born with the power to shapeshift restored. A turkey born to be king, some say. After organizing the other survivors, training them in the restored art of shapeshifting, they traveled back through time. Once here, they’ve been training the turkeys of this century to unlock their true powers. It’s like I said. Where did they come from? From everywhere. They’ve been hiding among you for decades as humans, waiting for their chance to rise up, to prevent that dark future.

(explosions, sound of yelling)

BUD: It’s about time. It took a little longer than I would’ve expected to reach me. Unfortunately, it seems that our time has run out.

MAN: What do you mean? How do you know so much about their plans?!

(sounds of chairs being knocked over, rapid movement, shouting)

WOMAN: What, what are you?! What have you done with Bud?!

NEW VOICE: There never was a Bud, but I appreciate you bringing me here, revealing this bunker’s hidden location.

MAN: What, what do we do now?!

NEW VOICE: Bow before me! BOW TO YOUR KING!!

(screaming, end of tape)