Dinner for Three by J.W. Garrett

A sticky red paste covered the cook who’d gone to whack off the heads of the three hens, his entrails now picked clean.

But the trio was still hungry.

Poking a path through the kitchen, the French hens searched for their own dinner on the third day of Christmas. Delicious aromas spilled from the space, a precursor no doubt to them—the intended main course.

Sometimes menus change.

Eyeing the baker, they attacked with a shriek. Eyes, liver and heart devoured, they departed, bloody claw prints the only clue left for the calling birds arriving the fourth day of celebration.