Member-only story
Dead Chickens
Dateline: The Future, Ottawa County, Michigan
The caged chickens died, rotting with their last laid eggs. Fugitive, sulphureous death fogs seeped from factory farms bearing clouds of obsidian flies that drove away creatures that could escape, leaving the fenced and restrained to die of pustular bites. The turkeys died.
Plague returned killing thousands of people. The old and infirm as always first, followed this time by the children, urban poor, farm workers, and methodically the middle aged and young adults.
The weakened county hosted avian flu. Pneumonia. Tuberculosis.
Crops rotted.
The Ottawa County Board of Commissioners eviscerated the health department, driving out the qualified, installing incompetent deniers who sent every county resident Ivermectin, an animal wormer. Many people died of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, hypotension, allergic reactions, dizziness, ataxia, seizures, and coma.
A Second Amendment sanctuary county, armed militia drove away health care teams sent by the Governor to inoculate people with plague effective drugs.
The county board refused to close schools, churches, and entertainment venues, while ordering businesses to remain open.
The dead children emptied the schools.
The dead congregants emptied the pews.
The dead people emptied public venues.
The dead rivers flowed with rotten offal.
Tourism died.
Businesses died.
For mounting deaths, the county board blamed gays and minorities and “woke” and drove them away. New enemies needed: the board attacked Jews, then Catholics and Muslims, and finally Christians not Christian Nationalist.
The Governor sent the national guard to restore order and services. They were met by a large sign:
Jesus is Lord Over Ottawa County
On which was scrawled: Where People Come to Die
