The Shadow of the Axe (part three)

{Part One}
{Part Two}

That night the frosty wind made moan. The earth stood hard as iron. The farmhouse stood unlit, Letterman was over and even Conan was asleep. It was the second watch of the night... but nobody was watching. Nobody save for Cesar and his ill-tempered cohort. Yes, they were watching the farmhouse with icy malice.

And the clock ticked.

Cesar quietly contemplated the razor edge of his axe and lost himself in a dream wherein he danced a perfunctory tango on the sharpened apex of steel, which plunged down cruelly in either direction. Yet he danced unconcerned. His partner was a shadow, a mere vapor, perhaps death itself. No matter; he danced as unto himself.

"Cesar!"

The calling of his name startled him out of his morbid reverie. He knew that it was time.

The band of turkeys advanced on the house from the side opposite the bedroom where Earl and his wife lay asleep. The old-fashioned cellar door was never locked. The turkeys knew this from the regular poker nights that they held in the farmhouse basement. And so they slipped in, as quietly as tea infusing hot water, as lethal as eating the wrong kind of mushroom.

(to be continued)