I enjoy a bit of spookiness and the macabre. One reason I explore graveyards.

I recently wandered around in St. Michael’s Cemetery ^[1] in Astoria ^[2] with my fiance. I like to go there every year around Halloween. It’s right near a highway, but it’s huge. And has some very old graves. We went through a few winds of the path, where the graveyard borders on a forested area. And we heard an odd sound in the underbrush. I jumped! We edged nearer to the forest and heard it again. A faint, but distinct… clucking!

We peered into the woods and saw the creatures making the sound. A whole flock of chickens! Feral, it seemed. Hens, roosters. Dozens of them! We also saw a pheasant with them! Feeding peacefully among them like one of the flock.

There was some feed on the ground, as if someone regularly feeds them. A chicken-loving gravedigger, or the ghost of a farmer. It was just the oddest thing to see this big group of chickens, clucking away in the middle of a graveyard. Pretty spooky stuff!