The Amber Culling

Pastor Billy "Salvation" Sweetwater had fallen further than Lucifer himself, and that was saying something, considering Lucifer never had to shovel goat shit at six in the morning.

The rusted Cadillac wheezed to a stop outside Sunshine Acres Petting Zoo, chrome bumper held on by duct tape and divine intervention. Billy adjusted his tie in the rearview mirror, the silk now frayed at the edges from too many repo men grabbing it. His phone screen showed zero missed calls. The faithful had moved on faster than rats from a sinking ship.

Two hundred hours of community service. Two hundred hours in this backwater purgatory while his empire crumbled into dust.

A woman emerged from a trailer that had seen better decades, cigarette dangling from lips that had forgotten how to smile. Her gray hair was pulled back in a bun that could stop bullets, and her eyes held all the warmth of a tax audit.

"You must be the famous fraud," she said, exhaling smoke. "Welcome to Paradise. Try not to steal anything."

Billy deployed his practiced charm offensive, stepping from the car with arms spread wide. "Sister Dolores, I presume? What a blessed morning the Lord has granted us! I am Pastor Billy Sweetwater, humble servant of the Almighty, here to bring the light of prosperity to this humble establishment."

Dolores stared at him with dead eyes. "The chickens need feeding."

"Of course, of course! But first, let me share with you the vision God has placed on my heart for this sacred space. I see families streaming through these gates, children's laughter echoing across—"

As Billy gestured grandly toward the dilapidated animal pens, his gaze swept across a chicken coop. Time stuttered. One bird sat apart from the others, a Rhode Island Red with amber eyes that seemed to bore straight through his skull.

The world tilted.

Images flooded his mind: Dolores buying a winning scratch-off ticket at the Shell station. A couple breaking up in the Walmart parking lot, the woman hurling a bag of Cheetos at the man's head. Someone's grandmother's secret fried chicken recipe involving Coca-Cola and dark family secrets.

Billy stumbled backward, hands pressed to his temples. The visions had felt like ice picks behind his eyes, each image searing itself into his memory with unnatural clarity. Heat stroke. Low blood sugar. Too much Jim Beam in his coffee. But even as he grasped for rational explanations, part of him noted the precision of what he'd seen—not vague impressions, but specific details down to the exact time stamp.

And those amber eyes... they'd seemed to be looking not at him, but through him, cataloguing something deep inside his skull.

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes!"

The voice was high-pitched, theatrical. Billy whipped around to find a ferret standing upright in a cage, tiny paws pressed against the wire mesh.

"Did that thing—"

"Yeah, he does that," Dolores said, lighting another cigarette. "Ignore him. The chickens still need feeding."

Billy stared at the ferret, who fixed him with an unnervingly intelligent gaze. Definitely heat stroke.

"His name's Marlowe," Dolores continued. "Previous owner was some theater professor from Atlanta. Left him here when she couldn't afford the rent anymore."

The ferret chittered something that sounded suspiciously like iambic pentameter.

"Right," Billy said slowly. "The chickens."

*******

By afternoon, Billy had fed every animal in the place twice while his mind churned through rational explanations. The sun beat down mercilessly, turning his one good suit into a portable sauna. Sweat stung his eyes as he approached the chicken coop again.

Heat stroke. Dehydration. Stress-induced hallucinations. Anything but supernatural nonsense.

The other chickens pecked at grain and strutted about their business, but the red hen sat motionless on her perch, amber eyes tracking his movement. Billy crouched down, notepad in hand.

"Alright, Henrietta," he said, reading the nameplate on her perch. "Let's see what you're really about."

He made deliberate eye contact.

The world exploded into fragments of possibility. This time the visions came sharper, more detailed: Dolores's ex-husband Harold returning next Tuesday at 11:47 AM, tail between his legs. Deputy Janet Kowalski nursing a secret crush on the veterinarian who came by Thursdays. The town's water main bursting Thursday at exactly 3:47 PM, flooding Main Street.

Billy broke contact, gasping. His hands shook as he scribbled notes.

This is insane. This is impossible. This is...

"Dolores!" he called, jogging toward the trailer. "Quick question about your husband."

She snorted. "Harold? That son of a bitch ran off to Tampa with his secretary three years ago." But something flickered in her eyes. Hope? Fear? "Why?"

"Oh, no reason. Say, hypothetically, if he were to come crawling back, what would you do?"

"Hypothetically?" She took a long drag. "I'd probably take him back. I'm an idiot that way."

Billy's pulse quickened. He glanced back at Henrietta, who watched with predatory patience.

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!" Marlowe squeaked from his cage.

But what if it's real?

Billy pulled out his cracked iPhone, mind already calculating angles. Viral videos. Speaking tours. Book deals. The faithful flooding back with their wallets open.

"Sister," he said, his preacher voice creeping back, "I believe the Lord has blessed this establishment with a miracle."

*******

The first "Prophetic Poultry" video looked exactly what it was: a desperate man filming a chicken with his phone. Billy positioned himself beside Henrietta's coop, adjusting his tie and summoning his old television presence.

"Beloved friends, I speak to you from a place of humble service, where the Lord has revealed something extraordinary." The camera caught his reflection in Henrietta's amber eyes. "This blessed bird, this feathered prophet of the Almighty, has been granted the gift of divine sight."

He uploaded it Monday night. Tuesday morning brought 847 views and three comments, two of them telling him to get a real job.

Tuesday at 11:47 AM, Harold Crankshaw's beat-up Ford pulled into the petting zoo parking lot.

Billy livestreamed the whole thing on Facebook: Harold shuffling toward the trailer, hat in hand, Dolores emerging with fury written across her face. The argument. The tears. The reluctant embrace.

"Folks," Billy whispered into his phone, "you're witnessing prophecy fulfilled."

His follower count jumped to 10,000 overnight.

Wednesday brought pilgrims. A desperate farmer whose crops were failing. A woman whose son had gone missing in Atlanta. A day-trader with bloodshot eyes and shaking hands.

Billy charged twenty dollars for a "divine consultation." Each person stared into Henrietta's amber eyes while Billy provided spiritual interpretation of their visions. The chicken's predictions were eerily specific: which horse would win at the track, where to find a lost wedding ring, when to sell GameStop stock.

Thursday at 3:47 PM, the water main burst exactly as predicted. Billy livestreamed the flood, his viewer count exploding to 50,000 as emergency crews pumped water from Main Street.

The changes in his regular visitors started small. Mrs. Henderson, who'd won fifty dollars on a scratch-off after Henrietta's "guidance," returned the next day. And the next. By Thursday, she was camping in the parking lot, staring at the chicken coop with unblinking eyes that had begun to show flecks of amber.

"Mrs. Henderson," Billy had asked gently, "don't you need to get home to your cats?"

She'd turned to him with a smile that didn't reach those strange, brightening eyes. "The Prophet provides all I need," she'd said in a voice like rustling leaves.

The farmer whose crops Henrietta had "saved" brought his entire family. They stood in a silent line, swaying slightly, their collective gaze fixed on the chicken coop. When Billy tried to speak to them, they responded in unison: "We are listening to the eternal song."

By Friday, the local news crew arrived.

Billy should have felt triumphant as the cameras rolled, but something cold had settled in his stomach. The believers' expressions weren't just devoted—they were vacant. Empty. And when he looked in the mirror that morning, he'd noticed his own eyes seemed... different. Brighter. The rational part of his mind screamed warnings as he kept drowning in the roar of applause and the rustle of donation envelopes.

"I'm a humble servant, folks," Billy told the camera, Henrietta perched on his shoulder. "The real miracle is this blessed bird, this feathered prophet of the Almighty!"

The crowds grew. Hundreds, then thousands, streaming into Peach Bottom from across the state. They came seeking answers, clutching printouts of Billy's livestreams, eyes bright with desperate faith.

Billy preached while Henrietta sat on a golden perch donated by a grateful lottery winner. The donations poured in. The merchandise sold faster than blessed water at a tent revival.

But late at night, when the crowds went home, Billy found himself staring at Henrietta's coop with growing dread. The chicken never slept. Those amber eyes tracked him constantly, and sometimes—just sometimes—he caught himself walking toward her cage without remembering the decision to move.

This is it. This is my comeback.

But something nagged at him. The way visitors' eyes grew glassy after their consultations. How they returned again and again, neglecting jobs and families. The amber tint creeping into their irises.

Deputy Janet Kowalski pulled him aside Sunday morning. "Billy, I'm getting missing persons reports. People coming to see your chicken and then... wandering off.”

"Sister Janet, the Lord works in mysterious ways."

"Tommy Chen disappeared three days ago. You remember Tommy—fixed your transmission last year?" Janet's voice carried an edge Billy had never heard before. "His wife says he came here for a consultation, left walking like he was in a trance. Security cameras caught him heading toward the interstate, but after that..." She shrugged helplessly. "It's like he just evaporated."

Billy's chest tightened. He did remember Tommy—good man, honest mechanic, two young kids. "Maybe he just needed some time to—"

"His car's still in your parking lot, Billy. Keys in the ignition. Wallet on the dashboard. His wife's worried sick."

For a moment, Billy saw Tommy's face clearly: the desperate hope in his eyes as he'd stared into Henrietta's gaze, asking about his failing business. The way that hope had transformed into something glassy and vacant.

"The Lord doesn't usually leave people catatonic in Waffle House parking lots," Janet continued. "Or walking into traffic like zombies.”

Billy waved her concerns away, but doubt gnawed at him. During his evening sermon, he caught sight of his reflection in the livestream camera.

His own eyes now held flecks of amber.

*******

Midnight found Billy alone at the petting zoo, drawn by a compulsion he couldn't name. The animals were agitated. Goats bleated nervously. Rabbits thumped warnings. Even the ancient tortoise paced his enclosure.

"She's not divine, you fool."

Billy spun around. Marlowe stood upright in his cage, no longer speaking in Shakespearean quotes.

"What did you say?"

"I said she's not divine. She's a parasite." The ferret's voice carried exhaustion born from decades of helpless watching. "I've been cursed with awareness for forty years, watching her move from host to host. A traveling circus psychic in the fifties. A small-town fortune teller in the seventies. A pet store owner in the nineties."

This isn't happening. Ferrets don't talk. Not in English.

"The prophecies are real," Marlowe continued. "She can see probability threads, quantum possibilities. But only as bait. She feeds on human consciousness through the eyes, growing stronger with each believer."

Billy's throat constricted. "The missing people..."

"Drained completely. The amber eyes aren't a side effect, they're a mark of permanent connection. The more people believe, the more she can consume."

Horror crept up Billy's spine. "What is she?"

"Ancient. Alien. Hungry. She's been grooming you as her next vessel, Billy. Someone with influence, with a following."

Billy fumbled for his phone to call Janet, but the screen was dead. His car keys wouldn't turn. The Cadillac sat silent and cold.

"She won't let you leave," Marlowe said softly. "Not until she's ready."

From the chicken coop came a sound that might have been laughter.

*******

Sunday morning brought the largest crowd yet. Five hundred believers packed Sunshine Acres, carrying signs reading "Henrietta for President!" and "The Feathered Messiah!" The amber-eyed faithful swayed in unison, humming hymns that hurt to hear.

Billy climbed onto the makeshift stage, Marlowe's words echoing in his mind. He could feel Henrietta's presence pressing against his consciousness, trying to worm deeper into his thoughts. Every instinct screamed at him to run, but his legs moved him forward against his will.

"My beloved congregation," he began, fighting to keep his voice his own. The amber pressure increased, and his words began to shift. "I must tell you—" The truth. Tell them the truth. "—that we are blessed—" No! Fight it! "—to witness—"

Henrietta's gaze locked onto him from her golden perch. The world tilted.

You cannot resist, her voice whispered in his mind, ancient and patient. You are already mine.

But Billy had spent years controlling crowds, reading their energy, manipulating their emotions. Those same skills that had made him a successful fraud now became weapons against the parasite. He focused on the memory of Tommy Chen's empty eyes, on Mrs. Henderson's vacant smile, on Marlowe's decades of silent torment.

"The truth!" Billy shouted, his voice cracking as he fought against the psychic stranglehold. "This creature is not divine! She feeds on your faith! She's stealing your—"

The amber fire surged, overwhelming his resistance. When Billy spoke again, his voice carried harmonics that belonged to something else entirely. "The false prophet speaks! He who brought us together now seeks to tear us apart!"

The crowd's reaction was worse than violence—it was coordinated. Five hundred people turned toward him in perfect unison, their amber-flecked eyes reflecting the same alien intelligence. They didn't rush the stage; they moved forward with mechanical precision, their earlier humanity completely erased. Hands reached for him not in anger, but with the methodical efficiency of drones following programming—grabbing at his suit, his hair, his throat with synchronized movements. Deputy Kowalski tried to restore order but found herself outnumbered by increasingly aggressive true believers.

Henrietta's influence spread through the mob. More amber eyes. More glazed expressions. A chant began: "Feed the faithful. Feed the faithful."

Even as his body betrayed him, even as alien thoughts flooded his mind, Billy managed one last act of rebellion. His thumb found his phone, activated the camera, and with the final sparks of his consciousness, he stared directly into the lens.

"Don't look in her eyes! She feeds on belief! This is Pastor Billy Sweetwater, and I... I..." The words came out as his own thoughts were catalogued and filed away like old newspapers. "I'm sorry I failed y’all."

His thumb hit 'send' as amber fire consumed the last of Billy Sweetwater.

*******

Six months later, Sunshine Acres had been transformed into "Sweetwater's Sanctuary of Miracles." Gift shops lined the parking lot. Tour buses arrived hourly. Pilgrims purchased blessed merchandise and waited in lines to consult the Prophetic Poultry.

"Pastor Billy" preached to thousands, his amber eyes hidden behind designer sunglasses. His voice carried the same cadence, the same mannerisms, but something ancient looked out through his smile.

Dolores counted money at the gift shop, her own eyes showing flecks of amber. Harold stood beside her, blank-faced and compliant.

Deputy Kowalski investigated missing persons reports, but each lead went cold. Security footage showed people walking into the sanctuary and never walking out, though the cameras somehow never captured their faces clearly.

Tommy Chen's children still waited by the window for their father to come home. Mrs. Henderson's cats had been found dead in her house, apparently from starvation. The farmer's family had vanished so completely that neighbors wondered if they'd ever existed at all. But Janet Kowalski remembered their faces, their voices, their hopes and fears.

She'd stopped sleeping well since she'd started seeing amber flecks in her own reflection.

Marlowe sat in a golden cage labeled "Shakespeare, the Prophetic Pet," forced to dispense fortune-cookie wisdom to children. His eyes had lost their fire. When no one was listening, he whispered the same phrase over and over: "The rest is silence."

Billy's warning video had been dismissed as a "mental breakdown" and "cry for help." Comments ranged from "Fake news!" to "Poor guy couldn't handle his comeback." The algorithm buried it beneath cat videos and conspiracy theories.

"Pastor Billy" smiled at the camera during his evening broadcast, amber eyes glinting behind tinted lenses. Behind him, pilgrims swayed in perfect synchronization, their own eyes reflecting the warm glow of enlightenment.

"Tomorrow we expand to new markets," he announced. "The prophecy demands it."

In Peach Bottom, Georgia, business had never been better.