At 2:00 AM it was still unbearably hot and humid inside the chicken-house. The acrid stench of the chicken litter irritated Jose’s eyes and throat, but the sheer number of dead birds trumped his discomfort.
“Fernando,” Jose said as he carefully stepped around the lifeless bodies, “what could kill over 40,000 chickens in an hour?”
“Disease, heat?” Fernando guessed.
From the front of the long, long building, a rustling grabbed their attention. Surprised, they watched as the dead chickens stumbled to their feet and turned and faced them.
“The back door’s locked,” Jose whispered fearfully as more chickens rose up.