Ny's Writing Blog ✍️

Every fall, the people of Briar Hollow held the same quaint tradition: a townwide feast honoring the harvest. Tables filled the central square, lanterns glowed amber, and families arrived draped in scarves and flannel—pretending the town wasn’t slowly dying.

But the year the drought came, something else came with it.

The farmers swore they had found it deep in the woods, near the rotting stump where nothing grew—an impossibly large turkey, black-feathered, wheezing softly as if asleep. Its body was warped, as though stitched together by something with no understanding of anatomy. The creature shouldn’t have been alive. Its breastbone rose and fell in jerks, and its beak twitched like a half-dead thing clinging to instinct.

But meat was scarce, and desperation silences caution.

So they hauled it back.

The Night Before the Feast

Old Miller, the town butcher, was the first to notice something wrong. When he slid the knife across the creature’s throat… no blood spilled.

Instead, a thick black syrup oozed out slowly, burning tiny holes wherever it touched. The turkey’s body convulsed, talons scraping the wooden table, though its throat was slit wide open.

Then its eyes snapped open—glowing a diseased, molten orange.

Miller never had time to scream. The turkey’s beak unhinged wider than any bird’s should, and with a single thrust it swallowed the butcher’s head whole. Bone cracked. The body twitched. The table turned an ugly palette of black ichor and bright human red.

By sunrise, only one thing remained in the butcher shop:

A trail of claw marks leading toward the town square.

Feast Day

The townsfolk gathered, hungry, tired, and unsuspecting. Children chased each other among the tables. The mayor stood on a platform rambling about tradition. People cracked jokes about the “mystery turkey” Miller swore he would prepare.

That was when the bell rang.

Not the church bell—
The emergency bell.

It clanged wildly, but no one stood in the bell tower.

The ground vibrated.

Then the creature arrived.

It no longer resembled a turkey. Its body had split down the center, ribs flaring outward like jagged wings dripping tar. Its drumstick legs bent backward at impossible angles, ending in long, finger-like talons. Its face—Gods help them—kept changing. Human faces. Dozens of them. Like the butcher’s skull had become part of it.

The turkey let out a shriek that sounded like a pig being slaughtered underwater.

And then it tore into the crowd.

The Carnage

A man reached for his child—only for the creature to pluck him upward with its talons and peel him open like wet parchment. His insides slapped against the pavement. Another woman tried to run, but the turkey’s beak shot forward like a spear, skewering her through the spine and pinning her to a table.

It ate indiscriminately, gulping down limbs, leaving behind only teeth, nails, and shredded fabric.

Lanterns fell. Tables overturned. People scattered like mice in fire.

When someone finally had the courage to fight back, the turkey reacted violently. A young woman swung an axe at its leg—only for the wound to split open and sprout a cluster of writhing tendrils. They wrapped around her face and neck, pulling her screaming into the gaping wound as if the creature’s flesh itself wanted to devour her.

Her screams cut off abruptly.

The Last Survivor

By nightfall, the town square was silent except for crackling lanterns and dripping blood.

Only one survivor remained: the mayor, hiding beneath the stage, shivering uncontrollably.

He could hear it—scratching. Sniffing. Hunting.

Then a soft, wet thump outside his hiding place.

The turkey crouched low, eye glowing beneath the wooden slats.

And in the voice of the butcher—gurgling, broken—
it whispered:

“Feast.”

The mayor didn’t even make it to his feet before the boards shattered above him.