The Chicken House

THE CHICKEN HOUSE

An abandoned building draws kids to it, like a moths to a flame. And sometimes, they get burned.

Allister looked down at what he had written, and sighed. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to write about his own childhood, even under the guise of fiction.  He had thought that it would be a good idea — they say to write what you know, but what did he know, really? He only knew what he knew. There were the stories from the others, but what had happened, exactly? His father, a police officer always said there was your idea of what happened, the other person’s idea of what happened, and somewhere in-between was the truth. The best he could do was write his truth. But, what was his truth, exactly? What had really happened?

1997

“Come on! Don’t be a wuss, All Star! It’s just the Chicken House.” All Star is what his best friends called Allister. He didn’t exactly like the name, even though it sounded cool, but it was really because he was hopelessly clumsy, and was not really very athletic at all.

“I am not a wuss,” said Allister. “My mom said I’m supposed to watch Germa this afternoon. She’s paying me.”

“Yeah,” said Jordan, “but she didn’t say you had to watch her at home.”

“I want to go!” yelled Jemma. “If you don’t let me go, I’m telling Mom and Dad that you’re going to the Chicken House!”

Allister turned to look at his little sister. “Do you even know what the Chicken House is?”

“No, but I’ll tell them anyways.” Jemma crossed her arms across her chest stubbornly.

“You’ll have to ride your bike, cuz I’m not riding double. And it’s a long way away.

“I’ll keep up. Pllleeeeaaassse.”

“Fine! But you can’t tell Mom or Dad.”

“I won’t! I promise!” said Jemma, a smile crossing her face.

They grabbed their bikes and helmets and joined Jordan on the street. It was a lovely sunny summer day. Not too hot, with a light breeze blowing. A perfect day for an adventure. They rode towards Old River Road, where they waited for Sierra and Nick to join them.  

They were a gang of four — four kids who had known each other for most of their lives. Jordon was Allister’s best friend. They had been friends since kindergarten, when Jordan had moved to town. Jordan was poor. Allister and his family weren’t anywhere near rich, but compared to Jordan’s family they were rolling in it. Jordan and his three brothers lived with their dad on his grandparent’s farm, outside of town. Jordan’s grandparents were both dead, and Jordan’s dad had inherited the farm. But, Jordan’s dad was no farmer. He didn’t even pretend to be a farmer. He just collected junk, and tried to sell it to “suckers,” as he called them. The front yard was one big yard sale, if you were looking for broken, rusty castoffs. Jordan never talked about his mom, and Allister never asked. He just knew that she didn’t live with them.

Allister didn’t like going to Jordan’s house. It was always dirty, and it smelled bad. Real bad, like something died and no one bothered to take it away, bad. Allister knew what dead things smelled like. Last summer their old family cat had wandered off one day, and about a week later they found her under a bush in the backyard, dead. That’s what Jordan’s house smelled like — week-old cat carcass in the summer. Jordan didn’t like living at his house either. Allister was pretty sure his brothers knocked him around. Maybe even his dad. He was the youngest of the four boys, younger by five years. His brothers were seventeen, eighteen, and twenty, and all still lived at home. Most of the time Jordan was left alone to fend for himself. Allister’s mother understood how hard it was for Jordan, and regularly had him over for dinner, or sleepovers. He was a small, wiry kid, and Allister’s mom passed on any of Allister’s clothes when he outgrew them.

“Where are Sierra and Nick?” Allister asked Jordan.

“OOhhhh, Sierra. Jordan loovvvves Sierra,” mocked Jemma, making kiss sounds.

“Shut up, Germa!”

“Kiss, kiss, kiss,” she said, more smooching sounds with her mouth.

“You shut the hell up, or I’m going to punch you.”

“I’ll tell Mom and Dad,” she countered.

“Fine,” said Allister. “We’re going home. Now.” He turned his bike around, and started peddling back the way they had come.

“No! No! Wait! I’m sorry! Please! I want to go to the Chicken House.”

“Then you shut your stupid mouth,” Allister warned.

Jemma nodded, silently miming zipping her mouth and throwing away the key.

Allister figured that everyone knew how he felt about Sierra. Except, maybe Sierra. It had been this way forever. Sierra and Allister had gone to preschool together, and their moms were friends, and they had spent a lot of time together when they were younger. That continued as they got older, and started to hang out with Nick and Jordan. He was pretty sure Sierra just thought of him as one of the guys. 

Since summer had vacation started, Sierra was spending a lot of time with Nick, who lived across the street. All four of them had been in the same classes at school, including this year, grade six, but for some reason, Nick always seemed older. Allister was pretty sure Nick was already shaving. Allister had examined his own face in the mirror for hours. All he had was a bit of peach fuzz above his lip. Allister knew that Nick even had armpit hair. He’d seen it when they went swimming. And his voice was cracking. He seemed so much more mature than any of the other boys in their class, Allister and Jordan included.  

Before Allister could ask Jordan again where Nick and Sierra were, they appeared around the bend in the road, peddling quickly.  

Nick and Sierra skidded to a stop, Sierra a second ahead of Nick.

“Ha! I told you I was faster!”

Nick laughed, “I let you win.”

“You did not! If you let me win, why are you out of breath?” Sierra was also out of breath, but that didn’t matter.

“Whatever,” said Nick, smiling at Sierra.

Nick looked at the others for the first time. “Hey, what’s she doing here?” he said, pointing at Jemma.

“I’m babysitting,” said Allister.

“Right, All Star, babysitting.” He turned and looked right at Jemma, and using his best Spanish accent, said, “Babies! We don’t need no stinkin’ babies,” paraphrasing Blazing Saddles. That was Nick’s favourite movie. Everyone laughed, except Jemma.  

“I’m not a baby,” she said pouting like a baby.

“Don’t worry,” said Jordan, “Germa’s good to go. Right, Germa?” Jemma looked up at him, adoringly. Anyone else, and she would have screamed that her name was Jemma not Germa. She wouldn’t admit it, but Allister knew that she had a crush on Jordan. She always blushed when she spoke to him, or she just sat there smiling when he spoke. It had a pretty big ick factor for Allister. That was part of the reason Allister didn’t want to come out today.

“Okay,” said Sierra, “let’s go.”

They turned down the dirt path that lead to the abandoned Gibson farm. About twenty years ago there had been a huge fire that had gutted the house. Old Man Gibson and his wife both perished in the fire. They had a couple of kids, who sold off all of the farm animals and equipment, but they left the property unsold. And, on the property was the Chicken House. It was a two storey building, about fifty feet long, ten feet wide. On each of the two levels were rows of roosting boxes, stacked three high on the long sides of the building. The Gibsons raised free-range chickens before it was a thing.  There were chicken-sized doors at each end of the building, and the remnants of a chicken wire enclosures that had encircled the building.  

But, what interested kids the most was the egg holding bin, a round container that ran the length of the building on a ceiling tack that allowed the bin to travel from one end to the other, unimpeded. It was on a ball joint, so it also spun in circles. The chickens were long, gone, but the holding bins were still operative. There original purpose was to collect the eggs, and was more than big enough for a kid to sit in. Now instead of eggs, it held kids. Allister and his friends would run, jump into the bin, and see how far they could coax the bin along the track. It was a competition to see who could go the farthest. Of course, the winner was Jordan — his small size coupled with his speed allowed him to hurdle the bin a good fifteen -- twenty feet down the middle aisle.  

This time, though, they used Jemma as a kind of crash-test dummy. Each member of the gang, took a run at the bin and pushed Jemma with all their might, trying to thrust her the farthest along the track. Her squeals of laughter echoed over the abandoned building. Nick, of course, won the competition. He sent Jemma sailing down the middle aisle almost thirty feet.

They usually stayed on the first floor, but today Jemma wanted to see the second floor.

“Don’t bother, Germa, it’s exactly like this floor, but higher,” said Nick.

“I wanna see!” protested Jemma.

“Seriously, Jemma, there’s nothing to see.”

“Please! I’ll let you push me!’

Finally the gang relented, and they all ascended the stairs. Allister was wary of the second floor. The roof had caved in at the far end of the building, and the floor wasn’t as sturdy as the first floor. But he joined his friends on the second floor. He didn’t want them to think he was a wuss.

Without hesitation, Jemma jumped into the bin. 

“Push me!” she squealed. “Fast!” They couldn’t go quite as far as they could on the first floor because of the cave-in, but it was still a good ride for Jemma.

The first push was from Nick. Allister waited at the other end, to push Jemma back.

Nick backed up and ran towards the bin. Jemma held on the middle pole, so she wouldn’t catapult out the side.

She squealed with delight. Then her squeals turned to screams.

“What?” yelled Allister as he ran towards Jemma, trying to stop the forward momentum of the bin.

“There’s someone over along the side,” she said, her voice rising in fear as she pointed to a spot just before the cave-in.

Allister ran to stop the forward momentum of the bin. But twelve-year-old boy versus the forward motion of bin, and Allister was sent flying backwards into the debris pile from the collapsed roof.

Nick, Jordan, and Sierra came running towards Jemma and Allister. The stopped short, when Jemma pointed to where she had seen the person.

“Oh my God. There’s someone there,” said Sierra, following Jemma’s shaking hand.

“It’s a body!” said Nick, slightly shook, but not completely stunned by the discovery.

“It’s my brother,” said Jordan, taking a couple of steps towards the body. “Danny. He didn’t come home last night. The old man was ranting about killing him. Too late, I guess.” 

 Jordan and Nick crept closer to the body, standing beside Jordan, looking at the corpse. Allister started to rise out of the debris, when suddenly there was a great cracking sound, and the next thing Allister knew, he was falling. He hit the floor below, and pain seared up his arm. He screamed, not unlike his sister had mere minutes before.

“Allister, are you okay?” Jemma’s head poked through the hole in the floor.

“Get back, Jemma. The floor’s not safe.”

Allister watched as Sierra grabbed Jemma and pulled her back from the hole. A moment later Jemma came tearing down the rickety stairs with Sierra close behind.

Allister grunted in pain. He was pretty sure that he had broken his arm. His parents were going to kill him.

He looked at Sierra. “What’s going on upstairs?”

Sierra looked at Allister. “It’s Jordan’s brother. I think it's the second oldest, Danny. I think he’s … hurt. Badly,” she said glancing at Jemma before silently mouthing the word “dead” at Allister.

Jemma’s head snapped to look at Sierra. “Is he dead?” she asked.

Sierra looked at Allister, who shook his head slightly.  

“No,” Sierra said, “I think he’s just hurt.”

Sierra looked back at Allister. “Are you okay?”

Allister’s breathing was quickening, and he was cold. “I think I broke my arm. And it really hurts.”

Nick and Jordan came down the stairs.

“We’ve got to tell someone,” said Nick.

Jordan looked dazed. “It’s Danny. He’s —“

“Hurt,” said Sierra, swivelling her eyes towards Jemma.

“Yeah,” said Jordan. “He’s hurt.”

“We need to get help,” said Nick. “For Danny and Allister.” This was serious. Nick never called Allister anything but All Star.  

“Can you ride?” asked Sierra asked Allister.

“I don’t think so.” He slowly and painfully got to his feet.

Jordan was looking away, out the windows. Allister walked towards him.

“Hey, man, how are you?”

“My dad’s gonna kill me. He’ll think that it was all my fault that Danny’s dead.”

“No way man. We didn’t even know he was here.”

“The old man’s always drunk. If I’m here, and Danny’s here, then it’s my fault.” He looked pleadingly at Allister. “I can’t be here when the police find him.”

Allister called every one over. He looked at Jemma. “Danny’s really sick. He needs an ambulance, right now. But, we have to go. No one can know that we were here.” He looked Jemma in the eye. “You can’t tell any one, ever, that we were here. Do you understand?”

“Why?”

“Because Jemma, we will get in trouble if people find out that we were here.”

“You’ve got to promise, Jemma,” said Sierra.

Her face was pale, her eyes were wide. She was scared and she was shaken. “But what about your arm? What are you going to tell Mom and Dad.”

Allister thought for a second. “We’ll tell them I fell off my bike.” He looked at Jemma. “Can you do that, Jemma?”

“But it’s lying.”

“We’ve got to tell this fib, so that Jordan’s dad doesn’t get mad at him.”

Her eyes slid over to Jordan. “But what about Danny?”

“We’ll call the ambulance when we find a phone.” Allister looked at her again. “Please, Jemma. You’ve got to promise me you won’t say anything.” He was beginning to feel light-headed. His arm hurt so much.

“Okay,” she said finally. “But you can’t call me Germa any more.” She looked around at the group. “None of you!'

“Done!” said Nick.

They left the Chicken House, and headed for home. They all walked their bikes, because Allister couldn’t ride. Jordan peeled off, without a word, when they came to the road to his house.

Allister told his mother that he was trying to do tricks on his bike, and broke his arm when he wiped out. Jemma never said word. Allister felt badly about what had happened to Jemma — not just making her lie, but, he felt that he had taken her innocence away that day.

Allister didn’t know who called the police, but he heard about it from Sierra. She came to visit him when he got home from the hospital, and was confined to his bed. The police found Danny’s body, but she didn’t know how he died. She said that Nick thought it could have been a drug overdose.  

Allister only saw Jordan a couple of times that summer. They never spoke about what happened at the Chicken House. When school started in September, Jordan wasn’t at school. Allister had ridden his bike out to Jordan’s farm, but it was abandoned. All the junk was still on the front lawn, but there were no people. His best friend had moved away without telling him.

2021

Allister considered the unanswered questions from that summer. How had Danny died? Did someone kill him, or was it an overdose like Nick thought. Why had Jordan moved away? Where did he go? Was it because of Danny’s death, or something else? He’d never found out. He’d been too frightened to ask his parents.  

Allister picked up the phone, and dialled Jemma’s number.

She picked up after two rings.

“All Star! How ya doin’”?

“Germa!”

They both laughed at the use of their childhood nicknames. They hadn’t started using them again until they were adults.

“I was just thinking about the summer of 1997.”

“Really?” said Jemma, the laughter gone from her voice. “Why?”

“I was thinking about writing about it, for a short story. Only I don’t know what I don’t know.” 

“Are you sure you want to do that?” she asked. "Rehash history?"

Before Allister could answer, there was a light knock on the door, and Allister’s wife poked her head into the room.

“Dinner’s here.”

“Thanks, sweetie, be right there,” he said, smiling at his wife.

“Hey, tell Sierra I say hi,” said Jemma.

“Jemma says hi!”  

Sierra spoke loudly so that she could be heard by Jemma. “Hey Jemma!” Then she left the room.

“Your dinner’s waiting for you. I’ll let you get to it,” said Jemma.

“Why don’t we get together this weekend, here. We can talk about what we remember about that day.”

“Sure. Do you want me to call Nick? See if he can make it?”

“Sounds like a plan.” They said their good byes, and hung up.

Allister sat for a moment, before heading into the kitchen for dinner. The gang. The only person missing was Jordan. He wished he knew what had become of him. He was the only one who knew all the answers.