Inktober prompt seven: Panic

 Author's note: it's a bit messy, I apologize for the poor editing. I do hope you enjoy, though!! I'd appreciate your feedback on it!

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Mika Shepherd crouched in the corn stalks, his breathing slow and silent as he scoured the field in front of him for any sign of life. The sound of crackling behind him made him tense and a shiver raced up his spine despite the thick wool sweater that hugged him from his waist to his chin. He turned slowly on his heel and came face to face with a boy his age, grinning from ear to ear. Mika’s ears flushed pinker than the cold had already made them, “Gray?! What are you doing, get out of here.” He hissed, accidentally spitting on the other boy’s face in an attempt to sound threatening without being too loud. A cloud of regret slipped over his eyes for a second before he took on his look of foreboding again, better to seem intimidating than a pussycat, he thought.

“I’m lookin’ for a flag, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about one, would you?” Grayson asked cooly.

“N–no, why would I know?” Mika stuttered, coughing nervously, “Sorry,” cough “I'm allergic to corn.”

“Mhm,” Grayson eyed him and raised an eyebrow, “Bad time of the year to be out, then. I’d go back to the house if I were you.”

Mika didn’t answer, he had glanced over Grayson’s shoulder and his face had taken on such a look of horror, that Grayson ducked and spun around expecting a man with a chainsaw to be standing behind him. 

So he did stay up watching horror movies last night, I should have guessed, and on the night before Halloween too, what a chicken brain. Mika thought for a moment before zoning back in and realizing their situation once again. 

What was standing behind them was not a man with a bloodied chainsaw, but something much worse for the boys. For just a few feet in front of them stood a hideous feathery beast with a head that looked like a brain without a skull and splatters of blue dusting around its small, beady eyes. Eyes that seemed very much in the mood for eating little boys.

“When I get to three, run.” Grayson breathed, “One—” Mika took off sprinting in the opposite direction as if his life depended on it. “Hey, I said three!” Grayson roared, but snapped his mouth shut as the turkey took an unsettlingly jerky step toward him. “Heh…Hello.” Grayson smiled charmingly but the turkey flapped its wings and the smile dropped from the boy's face like a fish out of an osprey’s talons. The turkey took another step and as he did, a second monster appeared out of the hay. 

Grayson Barkley still holds the world record for the fastest 180 degree heel turn in history. He whipped around and launched himself with all his leg muscle off the ground, landed three feet from where he had just been, and hurtled after Mika like a missile. His bare toes dug into the moist soil, propelling him forward, he was still a faster runner than Mika, despite the other boy’s head start, and he caught up with him in no time. “You are so mean.” He snapped as they ran. 

“Hey, I did what I needed to survive, aren’t you always talking about ‘power’ survival? Well, I think I was pretty powerful back there,” Mika breathed, trying to keep up.

“You are the most confusing person on the entire planet.” Grayson stated dryly. “Hey, so, where were you planning on escaping to?”

“The house, duh.” Mika panted.

“We can’t go to the house! They’ll know where we live. C’mon, I have an idea.”

As they took off running, Mika glanced behind them and in the next instant Grayson heard a volcanic SPLAT. Looking back, and eventually down, he found Mika had fainted dead away and, unfortunately, landed face down in the mud. The reason was—Grayson yelped. It seemed the two turkeys had summoned every immediate and eighth removed relative they could possibly remember. Evidently turkeys have pristine memories. It took everything in Grayson to not panic, but he pulled himself together and Mika along with him. The mud seemed to have made his ninety pounds heavier and the boy’s feet dragged as Grayson hauled him along. After running for what seemed like miles with Mika, Grayson finally heard the boy groaning as he became conscious once more. Grayson paused and set his friend down, Mika stood shakily, after a second he smiled and started to laugh, but looking behind him at a noise, his laugh turned into a demented screeching and horrified yell all mixed into one as he hollered in despair, “THEY CAN FLY!??” Grayson confirmed this traumatizing newfound information at the same time as he shoved Mika away from him as he ran in the opposite direction, drawing the turkeys away from the poor other boy. Grayson’s plan was to draw them off, lose them, and then run back to find Mika as fast as possible, but as he ran into a cornfield with the flock consisting roughly of the entire turkey population of the whole US behind him, he started to doubt his plan slightly. He was turning round and round, when the biggest turkey approached him and gobbled at him a couple of times. It felt like he was in a cartoon where the group of bullies gang up on one kid and the other kids just stand and laugh. Every time the big one gobbled and stepped closer, the others gobbled along with him and stepped in unison. “You guys have been watching way too many Disney movies, guys.” Grayson coughed, trying not to sound too petty in the act of insulting their way of intimidating their prey. He failed, the biggest turkey threw his head back wildly and started sprinting at Grayson, the flabby red thing on his beak flapping in the wind as he pecked at Grayson’s toes. He dropped down and covered his head, and began regretting all the times he had been petty in his short, short life. But then, he felt a hand slip into his pocket and pull something out. All the gobbling stopped. Opening his eyes, he saw the silhouette of Mika standing face to face with the turkey, and of all things, feeding it. 

“You had grain in your pocket, Survivalist.” Mika grinned.

“Yeah, but you had something much better in yours,” Grayson chuckled and held up the blue flag he had pulled from Mika’s pocket while he was unconscious. “Check, mate.” He winked.

The End.