You haven’t, if you’ve never lived in our mountain town in Colorado. It’s smallish, and here, we have a local legend. Every Thanksgiving, people go missing. They say that someone survived the whole ordeal 20 years back and all he could recall was that he saw people being cooked over a campfire, for some kind of dinner. And by people that looked like turkeys.
Because of this crazy guy, the urban legend of the Tribe of Turkeys was born. Parents have been telling their kids that if they don’t behave, the Tribe of Turkeys will eat them next.
So, we have this whole break from high school on the week of Thanksgiving. Gives us time off from school and to celebrate it. Dad bought a fresh thing of turkey meat to cook. The whole bird.
Mom looked pissed, though, at Dad. I didn’t understand why she looked mad at him. All we’re doing is preparing the huge dinner and we’d gorge ourselves on that day.
So around a few days ago, I was hanging with my homies by the side of the building, and we were discussing what we were gonna do.
“Hey, Lancer!” I yelled to my boyfriend. “What do you say we try to debunk the Tribe of Turkeys myth?”
“Yeah, Lancer, why not we look into it?” my homie Ink asked.
Then Lancer said with a pissed-off look on his face,
“Guys, it’s true. We all know it’s true. People go missing cause of these guys.”
“It’s just an urban legend!” exclaimed another homie of mine, Tank. “I can’t believe you’re falling for that crazy old bat’s ramblings!”
“Ramblings, shmamblings! There is no way he’d fail a polygraph test if he told his whole story!”
“Lancer,” I said, with a heavy sigh, “you know polygraph tests are the worst fucking thing in the world.”
“Yeah, you tell ‘em, Sheldon!” Ink cheered me on.
“Okay, how about this: I observe when someone goes missing, we follow them in secret, and I’ll prove to you that the legend is true. What do you say?”
“I’d be all in…” Tank smirked, “if that crazy schizo guy wasn’t so detached from reality already!”
“Really, Tank? You’re gonna call a confirmed crazy man schizo when you’re not a psychologist?”
“Ink, I suggest you don’t listen to Lancer if he’s gonna believe that crazy old bat. You too, Sheldon. I know you’re dating a believer.”
“Actually, I think proof of either of our theories about the Tribe of Turkeys is needed,” I said, “so I’m all in with Lancer’s idea.”
“I knew you would agree with me, Sheldon, you handsome homeboy!”
… … …
It took some money that we gathered for us to buy ourselves a camera and a set of walkie talkies. We began setting up ways we can record each event happening at each house. People DO go missing each year, after all.
We began to plot and plan how we can find out if the Tribe of Turkeys was real. We had thoughts, like, do we stay out of plain sight? Do we talk to each other through the walkie talkies or do we use morse code? It took a while for us to agree on some things.
… … …
So, yesterday, which was Thanksgiving, we set our plan in motion. Tank assigned himself the east part of town. Ink went for the north. Lancer went for the west area, and I assigned myself the southern part of town, since I live there. We ended up buying three more cameras since we thought the whole town could not be captured on just one camera. That was quite a lot of money we spent…
Everyone was having their massive dinners in the houses. The dinner centerpiece, always some turkey of some kind. We’d agreed to talk over the walkie talkies since we didn’t all know morse code.
And we adopted some code names. Some pretty bad code names at that.
Then Lancer began talking to me on the walkie talkie.
“Koopa Troopa, this is Dark Jack. How are things in your area? Over.”
I couldn’t help laughing at this code name Lancer came up with for me because part of my name sounds like shell.
“Dark Jack, this is Koopa Troopa. Area is clear. Over.”
And then, out of curiosity about Tank and Ink, I decided to contact them.
“Calligraphy, this is Koopa Troopa. How are things in your area? Over.”
“Koopa Troopa, this is Calligraphy. Area is clear. Over.”
And then I talked to Tank.
“Incense, this is Koopa Troopa. What are the conditions of your area? Over.”
“Koopa Troopa, this is Incense. Area is… hang on, I’m getting something. Someone dressed as a turkey just went into one of the houses. Over.”
“Incense, this is Dark Jack! I caught something too! Some weirdo dressed as a turkey just went into his second house now, in my area! Over!”
I felt on edge. I decided to begin using my camera. I turned it on and started recording. I looked at all the houses that seemed normal. One thing I noticed was that my mom wasn’t present at our home. My family was celebrating, and I’d already had my portions.
I wasn’t standing out in the open, mind you. Lest the Tribe of Turkeys would capture me in order to hide evidence. Then, someone dressed as a turkey went into my own house. My home!
“Dark Jack, this is Koopa Troopa! One of the turkeys just went into my house!”
And then I saw the thing dragging my dad, who appeared tied up, somewhere.
“And it’s got my dad! I’m going to follow it. Over.”
“This is Dark Jack! I’m going to follow the turkeys in my area, too. Over.”
So all of us were following these turkeys. One of the ones dressed as turkeys felt very familiar, though…
… … …
The woods just outside of town felt wrong in so many ways. The branches felt spiky. And spiky branches don’t belong on trees that aren’t conifers.
Ink was the first to break the silence about how weird this all felt.
“Tank, I’m beginning to think this Tribe of Turkeys thing is real.”
“Oh, come off it. I’m sure this is just an organized prank adults are doing to fool us into believing a story told by a schizophrenic man!”
“Stop calling him schizo!” Lancer ordered.
“He’s detached from reality, Lancer! If he can make up a story like this, he’s not with reality!”
And then we heard some gobbling. Not like the traditional turkey’s gobble. It was loud and creepy, almost human.
And we just hid up in the trees. I saw some of the members of the Tribe of Turkeys run here. I got a good look at how elaborate their costumes are. The feathers were legitimately turkey feathers. And they looked… like real turkeys. Like giant, human-sized turkeys.
I knew immediately I had to hide further, because one of the turkey people looked up and likely sensed my fear.
“Lancer?”
“Yeah, Sheldon?”
“This doesn’t feel right. Nothing here feels right.”
“It’s okay, love. We’ll figure this out.”
And with that, after the turkeys were gone, we continued through the woods, recording on our cameras.
… … …
Dread was setting in. We all felt uneasy.
As we were recording, I began smelling something… delicious?
But it also smelled horrible. I had no choice but to ask my homies about it.
“Sheldon, I don’t know either.” Ink answered. “But I have a bad gut feeling about this.”
“Me too, Ink.” Tank replied.
“Sheldon, sweetheart,” Lancer spoke softly, “I’ll protect you…”
It took a while, but we finally made it to where all the turkeys were going. I got out my camera and started recording. The smell was fouler than ever, and as I looked further at the campfire…
We’d noticed that a man was being roasted over a campfire. His flesh was burnt, he was tied to the stick, he was also unable to scream as he was gagged. There were other guys there, too. But the turkey people had these guys held captive. Marked for cooking.
I couldn’t help vomiting. That’s when one of the turkeys noticed.
“Ah, shit.”
“Someone knows our secret!”
“Well, it can’t be helped. Find these guys and we’ll have our dinner tonight!”
It dawned on me that these guys were crazy fucks and that we had to run. And I recognized one of the voices.
“Sheldon!! You fool!”
That voice belonged to my mom, but how?
“Why should we let the human population grow ever higher while the turkeys become endangered due to this holiday!? I should have eaten you long ago!”
That was my mom in one of those turkey suits!
“Mom, why are you with these shits?!”
I turned off my camera now that I had evidence of this and I began to run.
“Ink! Tank!! Where are you, homies!?”
Ink was up in one of the trees. Tank was trying to free everyone who was held captive.
Lancer wasn’t responding. What happened to him?
“Lancer? Lancer!!”
I was being chased by my own mom while she wore that turkey suit. I couldn’t help but scream helplessly when she backed me into a corner and had the other guys in turkey suits tie me to that tree in the woods.
“Welp, it was nice being your mother, Sheldon. Too bad I have to eat you up now. You’re risking our exposure…”
Then I heard something like a battle cry. I saw someone in the woods with a cleaver of some kind. He’d been using the cleaver on these turkey people. I was crying, thinking I would die.
But then I heard a familiar voice.
“Sheldon! Sheldon, are you okay?”
… … …
The people in those turkey suits have been arrested and are now being detained for questions. I am in the middle of moving in with Lancer at the time. We’re going to get engaged soon, and Ink and Tank are happy with living under the same roof as us. Ink’s parents were part of the Tribe of Turkeys, and Tank was living in an orphanage until now. Lancer bought our apartment where we will be living for the rest of our time in high school, and for when we go to our local college.
The Tribe of Turkeys came to an end because of us. I still dread seeing turkeys now and then, because they could be Tribe of Turkeys people. I hope this thing with the turkey costumes and cooking humans doesn’t happen again…