Maineiac

Kay Martin, a secretary to a New Zealand MP, got the fright of her life a few weeks ago. According to the Auckland Sunday Star, she and a friend were chatting over a drink when they heard a chicken squawking. The bird sounded in some distress, so they went outside to investigate, thinking perhaps that it had escaped from one of the neighbors. But, there were no chickens anywhere.

Then Martin realized with horror that the sound was coming from her own kitchen - coming, in fact, from the oven, where she had put a chicken in to roast half an hour earlier.

"It was as if it was shrieking at me from its grave," she says. "It was so bizarre I just froze." As they approached the oven, the squawking reached a crescendo. They took the tray out, and as the chicken began to cool, the squawking died away.

Martin chopped the neck off and threw it in the sink. She noticed that the vocal chords were intact. "Steam was coming up the neck from the stuffing," says Martin, and this had caused the dead bird to squawk.

She has not cooked chicken since.