Neil Gaiman: Stories: All-New Tales

He was controlling it, feeding it. He was his own doctor, in very good hands. He’d soon be ironed up and back to his even more normal self.

So he was quite surprised when he went over the wall, even as he went over. What the fuck am I doing? He knew exactly what he was doing. He was going after the next-door neighbours’ recession hens. At three in the morning. He was going to bite the head off one of them. He’d seen the hens-he wasn’t sure if you called them hens or chickens-from one of the upstairs windows. He saw them every night when he was closing his daughter’s curtains, after he’d read to her. (See? He’s normal.) There were three of them, scrabbling around in the garden. He hated them, the whole idea of them. The world economy wobbled and the middle classes immediately started growing their own spuds and carrots, buying their own chickens, and denying they had property portfolios in Eastern Europe. And they stopped talking to him because he’d become the enemy, and evil, because he worked in a bank. The shiftless bitch next door could pretend she was busy all day looking after the hens. Well, she’d have one less to look after, because he was over the wall. He’d landed neatly and quietly-he was fit; he played football-and he was homing in on the hens.

He knew what he was up to. He was hoping a light would go on, upstairs-or better, downstairs-or next door, in his own house. Frighten the shite out of him, send him scrambling back over the wall. I was just looking to see if I could see the space shuttle. It’s supposed to be coming over Ireland tonight. He’d bluff his way out of it- Although it won’t be stopping- while his heart thumped away at his ribs. It would sort him out for another few days, a week; it would get him over the weekend.

But no light went on.

And the chickens cluck-clucked: We’re over here.

He grabbed one. It was easy, too easy. It was a lovely night; they were as clear there as they could have been, standing in a row, like a girl band, the Supremes. Shouldn’t they have been cooped up-was that the phrase? — and let out again in the morning? The city’s foxes were famous; everyone had seen one. He’d seen one himself, strolling down the street when he was walking home from the station a few months before.

He grabbed his hen, expected the protest, the pecks. But no, the hen settled into his arms like a fuckin’ kitten. The little head in one hand, the hard, scrawny legs in the other, he stretched it out like a rubber band and brought it up to his mouth. And he bit-kind of. There was no burst of blood or even a clean snap. The neck was still in his mouth. He could feel a pulse on his tongue. The hen was terrified; he could feel that in the legs. But he didn’t want to terrify the bird-he wasn’t a cruel man. He just wanted to bite its head off and hold his mouth under its headless neck. But he knew: he didn’t have it in him. He wasn’t a vampire or a werewolf. And he needed a filling-he could feel that. I was biting the head o£ a chicken, Doctor . He’d put the hen down now and get back over the wall.

But a light went on-and he bit. Downstairs, right in front of him-and the head came clean off. There was no blood, not really, just-well-bone, gristle, something wet. He wouldn’t vomit. They’d be staring out at him, the neighbours, him or her or him and her-Jim and Barbara. But he was quick, he was calm. He knew they couldn’t see him because the light was on in the kitchen and it was dark out here. Although, now that he thought of it-and he was thinking-they might have seen him before they turned on the light.

And now the chicken, the headless, dead chicken, decided to protest. A squawk came out of something that couldn’t have been its beak, because the head, detached or at least semidetached, was in one of his hands. He was holding the body by the neck and it was wriggling. Let me down, let me down.

He dropped the hen, heard it running away, and he charged. He ran at the wall. Not his own wall-he was thinking . The wall on the other side, two houses down from his own. He was up, no sweat, and he was over. He sat down for a while, to get his breath back, to work out his route home. He listened. He hadn’t heard the kitchen door being opened and the hen seemed to have accepted that it was dead. The other two hadn’t noticed, or they were in mourning. It was very quiet.

He was safe-he thought he was safe. He was stupid, exhilarated, appalled, ashamed, fuckin’ delighted, and safe. He looked up at the sky. And he saw it, the shuttle. The brightest star, moving steadily across the night. The Endeavour -he remembered the name.

He was back in the bed.

She woke-half woke. His cold feet, his weight on the mattress.

— What’s wrong?

— Nothing, he said.-I got up to see the shuttle.

— Great.

She was asleep already.

— It was amazing, he said, addressing her back.-Amazing.

He kissed her neck.

He actually slept. It was Friday night, Saturday morning.

The bed was empty when he woke. It was a long time since that had happened, since she’d been awake before him. He felt good-he felt great. He’d flossed and brushed before he’d got back into bed, no trace of the hen between his teeth. He’d gargled quietly till his eyes watered. No bad taste, and no guilt. He shouldn’t have done what he’d done, but a more important consideration quickly smothered any guilt. It was the thought he’d fallen asleep with, clutching it like a teddy bear, just after he’d kissed his wife’s neck.

Necks.

It was as simple as that.

The blood was a red herring, so to speak, sent to distract him-by his psyche or whatever, his conscience-to stop him from seeing the much healthier obvious. It was necks he’d been craving, not blood. He didn’t want to drink blood and he was no more anaemic than a cow’s leg. The simple, dirty truth was, he wanted to bite necks. It was one of those midlife things. And that was grand, it was fine, because he was in the middle of his life, give or take a few years.

Sex.

Simple.

He wanted to have sex with everything living. Not literally. He wanted to have sex with most things. Some things-most women. He was a normal man, slipping into middle age. His days were numbered. He knew this, but he didn’t think it. A year was 365 days. Ten years was 3,650. Thirty years gave him 14,600. You have 14,600 days to live. That’s fine, thanks. As he lay on the bed, he felt happy. The urge was gone, because he understood. His mind was fine, but something in him had been running amok. His biology, or something like that. Not long ago, only a few generations back, he’d have been dead already or at least drooling and toothless. Middle age and the autumn years were modern concepts. His brain understood them, but his biology-his manhood-didn’t. He only had a few years of riding left-that was what biology thought. More to the point, a few years of reproducing. And maybe the vasectomy had made things worse, or more drastic, sent messages haywire-he didn’t know.

The human mind was a funny thing. He’d been dying for a ride, so he bit the head off a neighbour’s chicken.

He went downstairs.

— A fox got one of Barbara’s hens last night, said Vera.

— Well, that was kind of inevitable, wasn’t it?

— That’s a bit heartless.

— It’s what foxes do, he said.-When?

— What?

— Did the fox strike?

— Last night, she said. -Did you hear anything when you were looking at the shuttle?

— Not a thing, he said. -Just the astronauts chatting.

She smiled. You’re such a messer.

— About what?

— Oh, just about how much they love Ireland. How’s Barbara?