The Rooster Weathervane

Allison Myers, twelve, was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Vacationing in northern Vermont with her twin brother Allen and her recently divorced mother, Priscilla, Allison, prior to a Sunday-morning church service, encountered a chilling occurrence. Walking to the church, she heard a parrot scream, Beware the rooster. The Myers were staying in a guest room at Ned Tanners farm in Bantam Hill where atop the barn was a rooster weathervane. The Red Death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous (Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death). Mankind had, for some time, been destroying the environment. The skies were polluted and the ground soils heavily contaminated. Food supplies and safe drinking water was fast dwindling. The innocence and freedom of all the birds were gone. Their powerful forces convened for a critical meeting of the Avian Advisory Council, which the Grand Master, Rooster, called to order. Mankind has destroyed our lifestyle and taken away our innocence and must be punished, unless we sacrifice a young, innocent girl. Dr. Marcus Tomson, a renowned Harvard professor of anthropology and psychiatry wished to offer Priscilla Myers a possible alternative to save her daughter. But Allison would at first be resistant as she deplored the fact Dr. Tomson was now dating her mother. Dr. Tomson cautioned that there remained little time to act, as the Avian Advisory Council had begun to set in motion their vindictive plan.