He awoke in the dead of night, body and mind still heavy with sleep. At first he lay staring into the deep blackness above the bed, wondering what had disturbed his repose. Certainly not his wife, whose gentle breathing indicated that she was still asleep.
Then the noise came again. Then again. He sat bolt upright and in a moment was pulling his clothes on, at the same time rousing his wife and telling her to gather the children and wait with them under the heavy table in the kitchen. In the dark he could barely make out her perplexed expression, her mouth open to question him, when she heard it too. At once she leapt from the bed and went to the children. After donning his coat, he took the small lamp from beside the door and lit it, before lifting the wooden latch and stepping out of the small cabin.
Outside some of the other settlers were emerging from their homes, lamps, candles and burning torches in hand. The noise was louder now and more frequent. The settlers looked at each other with increasing alarm as it became clear that there was not one source but many. Eventually all the men of the village were awake and outside, with the heads of curious women and children poking from behind cabin doors. Still everyone was too frightened to talk, let alone move towards the forested boundary of the encampment and investigate the noises. Just as it seemed the cause of the noise was about to move into the dim circle of light thrown by the assembled colonists' flames, it stopped.
For what seemed like an age, they stood hushed, waiting. A light breeze came up out of the trees and blew a strange and disconcerting scent into the settlement. Finally, his patience exhausted, one of the colonists muttered under his breath and began to walk cautiously towards the forest, his torch held in front of him.
As he disappeared into the gloom there was a sudden burst of motion and a stifled cry. As one the colonists recoiled and drew back towards the houses, their terror barely checked. But now there was movement in the trees all around. Slowly, ever so slowly, the hideous beasts advanced into view.
The men groaned and the women and children wailed from behind the cracked open cabin doors. As the creatures clawed their way forward it became evident that there were hundreds of them, too many for there to be any hope, for they surrounded the village in its entirety. Most dismaying of all was their ungodly appearance. The swinging growths attached to their malformed fleshy faces were especially disturbing to the pious colonists.
They stopped again and stood scratching at the ground. One of them fixed the closest settler with its beady eye and flicked its head to the side.
"Gobble" it said. "Gobble, gobble."
There was panic. The settlers dove for their homes as the monsters beat their great wings and and ran amongst them. Screams and indiscriminate pecking rang out across village. When it seemed that all was lost, a great yell arose from the woods and a band of natives burst into the clearing, clad in paint and animal skins, and wielding enormous pots of baked sweet potato topped with marshmallows. Swiftly they set about the beasts with their potent concoction, its unnatural content overwhelming them and driving them back into the woods, until all that was left to mark their presence were piles of discarded feathers.
The settler leaned shakily against the door of his cabin, his clothing torn and filthy where he had fallen in his flight, and surveyed his rescuers.
One of the savages stood ahead of the rest, a magnificent crown fashioned from feathers of the terrible birds atop his head. The settler recognized him as the leader of the band, and stumbled forwards, before falling to his knees before him in gratitude and supplication. Lifting his head to look up at his saviour, he tearfully begged him, "How can we ever repay you?"
"Casinos and small pox," the savage replied.
Magnifico!
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