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Hi guys, it's e J.
Miller. I'm the writer, creator,

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producer, editor, and I perform
a majority of the voices you've heard thus

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far here at the anthology series that
is Fast Food Horror. I want to

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take a minute, though, before
we get into this installment of the anthology,

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to give you all the heads up
about the story you're about to hear,

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because the story isn't entirely my own. You see, growing up,

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my father used to take great enjoyment
telling my brothers and I different stories on

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long car rides, mostly for our
entertainment, sometimes for his own. A

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majority of the stories that he told
us were stories his grandfather told him.

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This is one of those stories.
Not entirely. I took nice little pieces

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of it and changed it a day
up to it, and I hope made

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it a little more entertaining and a
lot scarier. Again, thank you so

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much for choosing Fast Food Horror,
and I really really hope you enjoy this

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installment from our anthology. And now, without further ado, your MC your

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Master is Ceremonies, Igor Frederick Igor, take it away. Thank you EJ.

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For that lovely introduction, and welcome
to Fast Food Horror. In this

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installment of the anthology, some hunters
go trapsing off into the woods and find

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themselves face to face with something they
have never con sittered that they are no

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longer the predator, but the prey. In this installment titled The Things in

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the Valley by Eve J. Miller, there is a long history of tales

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and fables of bogeymen and monsters and
things that go bump in the night,

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told by fireside, much like this
one, to frighten young children from wandering

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too far into the wood. Elders
and townfolk weaving wistful lies into so much

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bullocks held together by nothing more than
youthful imagination and smoke, all in an

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effort to keep those same youth from
danger, whether imagined or real. I

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tell you this now not to frighten
you, but to give you something the

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very means you may need to survive
should you encounter them in the wood.

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So pay attention. Our family has
been hunting these wood for many a generation,

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boy, and the wood has been
good to us for most years.

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Dear and pheasant, rabbit and squirrel. The wood has given us much and

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allowed us to survive. There was
a time, though, when I was

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your age that we also to the
valley, the area over the ridge beyond

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the fence. I know you've been
told to stay clear of that boundary,

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not to cross over the border,
because it's government property, with warnings of

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unstable ground due to sink holes and
geothermal vents full of toxic fumes and scalding

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steam of some such. But it's
time to set you straight, to prepare

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you, especially since tough times have
come. Food and game is scarce,

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and we need you to cross into
the forbidden land. In the fifties,

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our all knowing government had run out
of places to hide their sciency garbage.

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They had taken to disposing their radioactive
waste and other nasty chemical trash in the

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valley, sinking them in barrels in
the lake there. Oh, of course,

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the townfolk was never told what they
were doing. When they were doing

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it, we were blissfully unaware.
We fished and swam there, hunted the

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valley where the animals that drank from
that very same lake. They did this

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all in the dark of the night. This went on for a few years.

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Barrel after barrel of doctor Cheko Frankenstein, concoction of who knows what sunk

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to the bottom. It was the
fall I turned thirteen. The nights were

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getting colder, but the days were
still warm, the seasons unwilling to change

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from summer and give into Autumn's chilly
embrace. I was working at mister Vivick's

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diner, helping him prep for the
hunters to come in for their coffee in

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late breakfasts. As nine a m. Passed to eleven, the normal time

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the diner would be bustling with hunter
orange mister and missus Vevick became concerned as

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the diner remained empty and the streets
too, no pickups full of hunters coming

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back to town, just the blaring
silence. Vivick's diner was the traditional meeting

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spot for all the hunters to come
in and brag about what they saw,

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missed or hit and refueled before going
back out, but it sat empty.

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The quietness was deafening as we stared
out the restaurant's large window that looked out

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onto the stark streets. At noon, the town's fire whistle blared, marking

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the hour, startling all of us
at the diner. Still no hunters.

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Mister Vevick sent me home as he
closed for the day. I made my

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way down Main Street towards home on
my red swim, taking the emptiness in

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when the fire whistle blared again and
made me jump, nearly causing me to

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crash. Multiple police cars then raced
past me, with the town's ambulance at

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their heels, sirens and lights flashing. I watched as their lights disappeared over

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the bridge and around the bend,
heading toward the wood. I was thirteen.

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I had no responsibilities. I had
a schwin and a lot of curiosity.

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I pursued peddling with all the energy
a curious thirteen year old had.

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I crossed the bridge in record time
and had passed multiple empty pickup trucks of

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the hunters that had gone off that
morning in my race to catch wherever that

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they had gone. With youthful energy, I continued on my way and made

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it around the long bend to the
clearing outside the wood at the edge of

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the ridge where the police cars and
the ambulance had converged. There I found

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them, the four officers standing in
an unnatural row, staring at the line

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of tall pine like sentinels that stood
guard before you entered their forest. I

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looked past the officers and I saw
what they were focused on, What had

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their concentration and full attention. It
was that mist, the mist about the

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tree line, abingion flowing at the
wood's edge, that black mist, black

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as pitch, an ebony blanket that
hovered and flowed just above the wood's floor,

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the likes we had never slept.
I stood just behind them. They

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never even turned to acknowledge me.
We all just watched that inky thing.

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My focus was snapped back as I
heard a scream from behind me. Ebanating

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from the ambulance. Slowly, I
made my way to the back of the

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ambulance, Drawn by the screams and
panicked conversation, I found the two paramedics

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strapping down a hunter to a gurney, trying to calm him down, their

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eyes wide and fearful. The hunter, mister Morrissey, was in a frantic

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state. I could see cuts and
lacerations over his arms, his legs,

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his face, jagged rips of flesh. His orange vest, sheens and flannel

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were all torn and warm, long
ragged strips. As mister Morrisey began to

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calm down, though the sedatives doing
their work, he began to whisper and

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hushed nervous tones about what he encountered
in the wood. He said that he

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had entered the wood with his cousin's
fore just as dawn broke the sky.

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They proceeded from the clearing over the
ridge and made their way down into the

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valley towards the lake. They noticed
how early quiet it was, no birds,

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no scurrying of smaller animals, but
it was early the wood not yet

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awake, and dismissed it. As
they neared the lake. That's when they

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noticed the mist, that unnatural thing
rising from the surface, making its way

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through the tree line. They stood
there, transfixed something none of them had

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seen as town lifers, as regular
hunters and visitors to these woods. Their

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silence was broken with the softest of
twig breaks as they heard the scurrying about

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the brush to their rear. All
turned and raised their rifles. They prepared

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to take aim, and saw them
darting between the shrubs in groups of three

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and five, no more than a
foot high, with feathers and skin of

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ebony, black slim bodies and almost
glowing red eyes. They peered at them

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from behind the bushes, small turkeys, but their black exterior and red eyes

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not to mention. Their unnatural,
diminutive stature was unnerving, and what was

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even more so was their beaks,
a curved, sharp thing that protruded from

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its head and on its feet long
talons at the end of each turkey toe

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four inches long. No longer did
this bird resemble prey, but predator,

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mister Morrissey said. One of his
cousins shot his rifle into the air,

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causing the little turkeys to disperse.
More than twenty ran off into the woods

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from near by bushes out of view. We watched them, mister Morrissey said,

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as they disappeared into the thicket,
chirping angrily as they fled into the

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wood. Mister Morrisey said they noticed
then that the mist had started to encroach

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further from the lake and was now
mere feet from where they stood, yards

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away from the shore. After seeing
the turkey like things, they decided to

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call it a day and proceeded back
towards the clearing on their trucks. They

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had made it no more than fifty
yards in when they heard the crunch of

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branches and leaves breaking with quick successive
footfalls deer dogs. It was something bigger,

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not the tiny turkeys they had seen
just moments earlier. Whatever was coming

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had more weight and longer strides,
breaking through the trees to their right.

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He said they saw them coming,
black with red eyes, standing four feet

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tall in a full sprint, bigger
versions of the turkey like things they had

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seen earlier, with the same curved, sharp beak and unnaturally long talons,

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with sleek bodies. They seemed to
be charging at them with intent. Mister

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Morrisey said he figured the little ones
were easily scared off with a gun shot,

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so he raised his rifle and shot
it into the air. They stopped

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and stared at one. Fifteen creatures
in all raised their heads higher and turned

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so they could see mister Morrissey and
his cousins better. With their glowing red

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eyes. They did not seem frightened
in the slightest by the discharge of the

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gun, but appeared to be sizing
them up, trying to figure out their

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next move. Long seconds passed,
the tension grew. Mister Morrisey sensed the

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flock was about to charge again when
a deer broke through the brush along their

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right side, startling both the flock
and the hunters. The flock seemed to

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have been distracted and quickly forgot about
them. They let out a collective chirp

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as they turned their heads towards the
deer, now sprinting away, and darted

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after it, pursuing it into the
wood. He said. They picked up

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their pace at this point, almost
double timing it to get out of the

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woods and back to the safety of
their vehicles. It was unspoken they were

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all scared between the mist, the
little ones, and now the bigger ones.

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They wanted out. After an hour, he said, they could see

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the clearing and their vehicles. Mister
Morrisey said he let out a whoop,

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which he reflected was probably a mistake, because from behind a bush twenty yards

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ahead, they heard a loud exhale, followed by a chirp. They each

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took aim at the bush and waited, and it didn't take long for the

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source of the sound to make itself
known. It raised itself up to its

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full seven feet. He said,
they had to look up to meet its

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glowing red eyes, a massive,
sleek black frame like its little brothers,

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a rapier beak with the long talons
at each end of its toes. He

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said he was about to give it
a taste of his rifle when it let

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out a chirp, opening its beak
to reveal two rows of tiny pointed teeth

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in that large maw of a mouth. Its chirp was replied to by four

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other chirps, two on each side
of the hunters they were lying in wait,

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he said, he fired directly at
the one in front, which sent

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it to the ground in a heap. Then they all sprinted to their vehicles

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amidst the chirping coming from either's side, then behind them. Then that was

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the last time mister Morrisey said he
saw his cousins. There's definitely more to

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the story, so join us again
next week for the second part of the

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Things in the Valley. M