The Bird Read online

  “Look at the birds!” James says, watching everything with his hand over the bleeding eye, forgetting for a few seconds that he is torn in excruciating pain. “Are they attacking the chopper?”

  “It looks like it,” Sally says.

  “Look, the windshield just cracked.”

  “That flock of birds flew into the propeller. It’s going sideways now. It’s gonna crash. Oh, dear God, Jim, it’s going to crash on our island.”

  They look at each other just as the television crew screams and it is followed by a loud crash, coming from not far away. Winnie throws herself into Sally’s arms as they are pushed to the carpet. The entire house is shaking.

  “Dear God,” Sally exclaims and looks at the TV screen, where nothing but smoke is seen on the camera. As the smoke clears a little, she can see the flames from the burning chopper that landed on top of the Richardson’s house, three houses down from Sally and James. Luckily, they told Sally they were visiting their newborn grandson in Denver this week.

  “We need to get off the island,” James says. “Before that fire spreads.”

  16

  “We can’t go out there,” Sally says. She is standing by the door leading to the yard. Bird after bird is slamming against the window in a constant flow.

  “They’ll kill us.”

  James comes up next to her. He pops the top of Winnie’s morphine bottle again and Sally wonders how much he has had. She knows he is in a lot of pain; the eye is nothing but nerves, but still. How much can he take and still think straight?

  “It’s our only chance, Sally,” he says. His speech is getting slurred.

  Can she trust his judgment?

  He clears his throat. She looks at Winnie, who is sitting in the middle of the living room, in a fetal position, arms covering her head and crying.

  “The fire will spread fast in this wind,” James says.

  Sally swallows hard and looks at the window. Birds keep slamming against it like big hail. Blood is smeared on the outside and white feathers are stuck in it. Sally can still feel the beak from the small bird as it pecked her face. These birds are even bigger, maybe twice or three times the size.

  “I…I don’t know if I can do it,” she says.

  Barely has she finished the sentence when a loud thud, followed by frantic flapping, breaks the silence in the living room as a bird finds its way down the chimney. Winnie looks up, sees the white bird flapping around, then screams.

  “BIR-DIIII-EEEE!”

  Sally jumps for the umbrella that James has left on the carpet and hurries towards it as it gets ready to attack Winnie. It dives towards the child, grabs her hair, and pulls it forcefully, Winnie screaming even louder.

  “MO-M-M-Y-YYY!!!!”

  Sally swings the umbrella through the air and hits the bird so it slams against the chimney with a loud noise. The bird falls to the ground, flaps its wings a few times, again and again trying to get up, but not succeeding. Sally pants and stares at it, then walks to it, lifts the umbrella high in the air and lets it fall on it over and over again, as hard as possible.

  “It’s dead, Mommy, it’s dead!” Winnie screams.

  Still, Sally doesn’t stop. She keeps hitting the bird till they can hardly tell it is a bird anymore. Still, she keeps going and going at it. James finally puts his hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s dead, Sally.”

  She stops. Panting, she looks up at him, blowing a lock of hair away from her face. “I just needed this.”

  “What we need is to get out of here. The fire is at our neighbor’s house now,” he says. “It’s licking the side of ours. Soon, it will get ahold of our roof, and then it’s over. The wind is not helping. We have to get out of here. Now.”

  Sally pauses and looks into the road. She sees old Mr. Monty running down the street. At least she thinks it is him inside the flock of birds. He screams and tries to fight the birds off with his cane, but once he hits one, more just come back at him. Finally, he is forced to his knees. Sally feels terrible just watching him like this. She hates feeling so helpless.

  James disappears, then returns holding his rifle that he uses for duck hunting. He cocks it and looks at Sally with the eyes of a madman.

  “Fasten your seatbelts, my dear. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

  17

  Armed with an umbrella each, Sally and Winnie follow James to the French doors leading to the yard. Birds are still coming at the house in a massive amount and James can’t help but wonder where all these birds are coming from all of a sudden and what the heck has gotten into them, attacking them like this, attacking the entire island?

  Could it be just because we killed that little bird? Because Sally killed it?

  The thought lingers for a few seconds before James kicks open the French doors. While yelling, he starts to shoot. The hope is that the sound of the shots will scare the birds away. It usually does when he goes duck hunting. Just one shot will make all the birds in the area take off at once, even from treetops far away.

  A bird comes at him and he shoots it. It is hit and falls to the ground. But before he can reload, tens of his friends are back, flocking around James, pulling his hair, pecking at his face and bare arms. Behind him, Sally and Winnie are fighting the birds off using the umbrellas, but not having much success, judging from their screams.

  “Get the hell out of here!!!” James screams, then fires yet another shot. As usual, he doesn’t miss. The bird falls to the ground, dead as a…well, bird, but it’s not enough. As soon as one goes down, ten or maybe even twenty of his friends take over. James soon turns to try and wipe them away, swinging the rifle through the air, hitting a few birds, but not getting rid of them. Behind him, Winnie and Sally are screaming loudly.

  Why aren’t they afraid? Why didn’t the sound scare them? What the heck is wrong with these darn birds?

  “JIM!” Sally screams. “We have to get back inside!!”

  They pull back. A bird is on top of James’s head as he rushes for the French doors. It is pecking his scalp, piercing its beak deep into his head. It hurts like crazy and James is screaming.

  Sally sees it, swings her umbrella, and hits it. The bird doesn’t even move. It just takes the blow, then continues to peck, like it is drilling into his brain.

  PECK-PECK-PECK

  “Get it off me, get it off!” James is yelling as they storm in through the doors, dropping the rifle to the floor. Sally closes the doors behind them, barely keeping the massive amount of birds out. Winnie falls to the ground, crying, bleeding from her face and arms.

  James is getting hysterical. Panic erupting inside of him as he tries to reach up and grab the bird.

  “Get it off!”

  Sally swings the umbrella again and again, but the bird doesn’t move. It’s like it doesn’t even feel the pain.

  “I can’t get it off, Jim. I can’t get it off. It won’t let go, no matter how much I hit. Or how hard.”

  “It hurts,” he screams and falls to his knees. “Please, help me.”

  “Daddy!” Winnie shrieks. “Help Daddy!”

  “I’m trying to. I’m trying my best here,” Sally yells through gritted teeth while hitting the bird over and over again. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to get it off him.”

  “Just do something. Anything,” James yells desperately.

  Sally looks around her, then heads for the fireplace where she picks up the fire poker. With a loud yell—worthy of an Amazon warrior—she runs towards James, who is still kneeling. James sees the look on his wife’s face, then screams as he sees the fire poker come closer. He can’t see what is happening, but hears a plump sound and feels the extreme relief when the claws lets go of his scalp.

  James looks up and sees Sally standing with the fire poker in her hand, still pierced through the bird sitting at the other end like it is ready to be barbecued.

  “Yay, Mommy, you got it!” Winnie exclaims. “You got it.”

  18

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nbsp; Panting with exhaustion and in deep pain, they rest on the carpet for a few seconds. James is looking at his wife with the dead bird still in her hand.

  “Thanks, babe,” he says.

  “No problem,” she says and pulls the bird off the fire poker before she puts it on the ground. She looks at the window. “But even though we got rid of one, there are still so many of them out there. It’s like, the more we kill, the more return.”

  James chuckles, not because he is amused, more because of the bizarreness of the entire situation, the powerlessness.

  “Yeah, they’re like weeds. We can’t get rid of them.”

  Sally’s face lights up. “What did you say?”

  “We can’t get rid of them?”

  “No, the other part.”

  “They’re like weeds?”

  She looks at him with a look he doesn’t remember ever seeing in his wife’s eyes before. Meanwhile, a loud sound comes from the French doors. James turns to look and sees the birds. It is like they’re trying to penetrate the doors. Some are pecking on the windows and soon the glass cracks.

  “Mommy?” Winnie says.

  But Mommy isn’t there. James turns his head to look for her, but she is no longer in the living room.

  “Where’d she go?” he asks.

  Winnie shrugs then returns to watching the birds outside the closed doors. “I think they’re trying to get in,” she says.

  “That’s silly,” James says, chuckling again, but it comes out awkwardly. “They can’t come in here.”

  And just as he finishes the sentence, a beak pecks through the glass. Winnie screams again. James gasps. The bird’s beak seems to be stuck for a little while before it finally manages to pull it out, just to return to pecking and shattering the glass. Soon after, it jumps inside, tilts its head to one side, then to the other, like it is studying them, sizing up its victims.

  “Winnie. I need you to sit completely still,” James says. “Maybe it won’t see you if you do.”

  Winnie whimpers and hides her face in her knees. James looks for the fire poker, then leans over and grabs it nice and quietly, careful to not attract the bird’s attention. He picks it up but makes a noise in pain. The bird lifts off the carpet and soars into the air with what sounds mostly like a loud scream.

  KR-A. KR-AA. KR-AAA.

  It sounds almost like it is calling for its friends. The bird sits on the black IKEA curtain rod that Sally likes so much. Seconds later, another bird finds its way through the hole in the glass and joins the first one. James is holding on tight to the fire poker when a third bird comes through, then a fourth, and soon there is an entire flock of them sitting above the door, waiting.

  James has a hard time holding the fire poker still in his hand. He looks at Winnie and imagines what he is going to do once they make their move. There is more pecking behind them and soon another beak finds its way through the glass, then another and another. Birds are crawling inside one after the other, while others are putting so much pressure on the French doors, they soon cave and slam open, the doors falling off their hinges, letting in thousands of white fluttering birds.

  19

  “They’re coming, Daddy. They’re coming!”

  Winnie shrieks and pulls back. The birds have gathered in one big crowd. It’s like they’re waiting, getting ready to attack. James comes up behind Winnie, grabs her by the waist, holding out the fire poker, ready to protect her. He can’t hold it still. His hands are shaking too massively. A bird makes a move and he turns to face it, pointing the poker at it.

  “Don’t you dare come near my daughter,” he hisses. “I will pierce this thing right through you.”

  He talks to them like they understand him. He wants to let them know he isn’t afraid of them, even though he is terrified. He knows perfectly well he doesn’t stand a chance. He knows he can only kill one of them with the fire poker. Only one. After that, he’ll be left unarmed and helpless. He wonders if the birds know it too. Are they that intelligent?

  The massive flock of birds soon surrounds them and James is swinging the fire poker back and forth, hitting a few—missing many.

  “Get away from us, you flying rats,” he yells as they dive towards them. Some have their claws first, others their beaks. He sees one with his only eye, diving towards him, then swings the poker, but misses and it goes directly for his eye, the only one he has left. James screams loudly, thinking he is going to lose the other eye, when he suddenly hears a hissing sound coming from behind him. Not a hiss like a cat would make it. No, this is different. He knows this sound very well from weekends spent working in the yard.

  James pushes Winnie to the ground and jumps on top of her as the flames shoot above his head and hit the birds. His head on the carpet, he watches as the birds drop to the ground by the tens. The smell of burnt feathers would normally make him feel sick, but not today. Today it fills him with the sweet sense of victory. Seeing bird after bird drop makes him so thrilled he feels like laughing.

  Hundreds of birds die, and soon the rest realize what is going on, then turn around and flee. The living room is soon empty of birds, well of the living ones; the floor is still packed with the dead ones. The curtains are on fire and so is Sally’s beloved couch, but the birds are gone. No more fluttering, no more kra-ing, no more pecking.

  James lifts his head and looks up to see Sally standing there, the flame-throwing weed killer in her hand.

  “Of course,” he says, laughing as he gets up. There still isn’t anything funny about the situation, but the relief makes him want to laugh.

  Sally smiles. “You okay?”

  “Think so.” He helps Winnie up as well. She is still crying. He picks her up and lets her cry on his shoulder. “How did you…?”

  Sally shrugs with a grin. “I guess desperate times do call for desperate measures, like they say.”

  He smiles and nods.

  “They sure do.”

  Sally walks to the opening leading to the yard, where the French doors were before they caved in. She steps outside and fires the weed killer again, probably to scare away the birds. She hits a bunch and they drop like flies. It’s the sweetest sound in the world. The rest of the birds flee. Sally then turns and looks at James.

  “Follow me. These birds are going down.”

  He has never felt more attracted to her.

  20

  They run for the boat. Sally makes sure no birds come close to any of them, killing each and every bird that does, frying it till it falls out of the dark sky, and enjoying every second of it. On the dock, they get into their speedboat and, minutes later, they take off, James steering the boat into the darkness of the Intracoastal waters.

  Sally is shooting fire in all directions, and soon the birds seem to leave them alone. The further they get from the island, the less they try to attack them.

  Soon, Sally doesn’t even have to shoot anymore. With a deep sigh, she looks at the island, her beloved home. From where she is standing on the back of the boat, it looks like a war zone.

  “Our island is burning,” she says.

  “All the pretty houses,” Winnie says and comes up next to her.

  “Hey, you said pretty,” Sally says and smiles. She already misses how she used to say it. Kids grow up so fast.

  Winnie leans against her mother’s hip and holds her tight. Sally feels relieved. She sits down on the boat and grabs Winnie in her lap. They sit like that, watching the burning island, getting further and further away from it when suddenly another boat approaches them.

  “It’s the Coast Guard,” James says and slows down the boat.

  The Coast Guard boat comes up on the side of them. A man pokes his head out, takes one look at James’s wounds, then says, “Are you all right, sir?”

  “I think we will be,” he says.

  “Let us take you to the hospital, sir. You’re hurt. Someone needs to look at that eye, sir.”

  James sighs deeply. He has almost forgotten how hurt he
is, but now the pain is back and he is out of morphine. They throw an anchor to keep the speedboat there till they can get out there and pick it up. They board the Coast Guard vessel and head towards land, going a lot faster than in their small speedboat.

  “Darn birds,” the man from the Coast Guard says.

  “Where did they come from all of a sudden?” James asks. “All these birds?”

  The man looks at him, then shakes his head. “No one knows. But they found a nest. In the mangroves, not far from the island. Thousands of eggs they said. They have been hiding in those darn mangroves for a very long time. No one ever gets near them since they’re not allowed to, due to them being endangered and all. You know, you can’t even go near them.”

  “Oh, dear God,” Sally says.

  “Had to kill them all. That’s what I heard. The Air Force came in those big choppers and had to drop a bomb. Can you believe it? A bomb to get rid of some birds. That’s some crazy sh…”

  The man restrains himself when he sees Sally react to his attempt at cursing. He looks at Winnie, then lifts his cap. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  “It’s all right,” she says. “I think we can all agree we have seen some crazy sh…shtuff tonight.”

  “Sure have, ma’am. Sure have.”

  “So, you’re telling me they have destroyed all the eggs where the birds were coming from?” James asks.

  “Each and every one of them,” he says. “There will be no more birds as soon as they have killed the last live ones. Won’t be long, though, and then it’ll be all over, sir. It’ll all be over soon.”

  “That’s a relief,” James says and grabs his wife’s hand in his. “That sure is a relief.”

  Six weeks later.

  Somewhere in central Florida.

  21