Bird Box

by Josh Malerman

  He does not answer. So she texts him.

  Important stuff. Call me when you can.

  Suddenly Shannon springs up from the couch and hollers.

  ‘Did you see that, Malorie? An incident in Michigan! I think they said it was in the Upper Peninsula!’

  Their parents are already on Malorie’s mind. As Shannon raises the volume again, the sisters learn that an elderly couple from Iron Mountain were found hanging from a tree in the nearby woods. The anchorman says they used their belts.

  Malorie calls her mother. She picks up after two rings.

  ‘Malorie.’

  ‘Mom.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re calling because of this news?’

  ‘No. I’m pregnant, Mom.’

  ‘Oh, goodness, Malorie.’ Her mother is quiet for a moment. Malorie can hear her television in the background. ‘Are you serious with someone?’

  ‘No, it was an accident.’

  Shannon is standing in front of the television now. Her eyes are wide. She is pointing towards it, as though reminding Malorie how important it is. Her mother is quiet on the phone.

  ‘Are you okay, Mom?’

  ‘Well, I’m more concerned with you right now, dear.’

  ‘Yeah. Bad timing all around.’

  ‘How far along are you?’

  ‘Five weeks I think. Maybe six.’

  ‘And you’re going to keep it? You’ve already made this decision?’

  ‘I am. I mean, I just found out. Minutes ago. But I am. Yes.’

  ‘Have you let the father know?’

  ‘I wrote him. I’ll call him, too.’

  Now Malorie pauses. Then continues.

  ‘Do you feel safe up there, Mom? Are you okay?’

  ‘I don’t know, I just don’t know. None of us do and we’re very scared. But right now I’m more worried about you.’

  On the screen, a woman, using a diagram, explains what may have happened. She is drawing a line from a small road where the couple’s car was found abandoned. Malorie’s mother is telling her that she knows someone who knew the elderly couple. Their last name is Mikkonen, she is saying. The woman on-screen is now standing in what looks like a patch of bloodied grass.

  ‘God,’ Shannon says.

  ‘Oh, I wish your father were home,’ their mother is saying. ‘And you’re pregnant. Oh, Malorie.’

  Shannon is grabbing the phone. She is asking if their mother knows any more details than the news. What are people saying up there? Is this the only incident? Are people taking precautions?

  As Shannon continues to talk wildly into the phone, Malorie gets up from the couch. She steps to the front door and opens it. Looking up and down the street, she thinks to herself, How serious is this?

  There are no neighbours in their yards. No faces in the windows of the other homes. A car drives by and Malorie cannot see the face of the driver. He’s hiding it with his hand.

  On the grass by the front walk is this morning’s newspaper. Malorie steps to it. The front-page headline is about the growing number of incidents. It simply says: ANOTHER ONE. Shannon has probably already told her everything the paper has to say. Malorie picks it up and, turning it over, stops at something on the back page.

  It’s a classified. A home in Riverbridge is opening its doors to strangers. A ‘safe house’ it says. A refuge. A place the owners hope will act as a ‘sanctuary’ as the grim news mounts daily.

  Malorie, experiencing the first real prickling feelings of panic, looks again to the street. She sees the door to a neighbour’s home open, then close quickly. Still holding the paper, Malorie looks over her shoulder back to her house, where the sounds of the television still blare. Inside, at the far wall of the living room, Shannon is tacking a blanket over one of the room’s windows.

  ‘Come on,’ Shannon says. ‘Get in here. And close that door.’

  It is six months before the children are born. Malorie is showing. Blankets cover every window in the house. The front door is never left unlocked and never left open. Reports of unexplainable events have been surfacing with an alarming frequency. What was once breaking news twice a week now develops every day. Government officials are interviewed on television. Stories from as far east as Maine, as far south as Florida, have both sisters now taking precautions. Shannon, who visits dozens of blogs daily, fears a mishmash of ideas, a little bit of everything she reads. Malorie doesn’t know what to believe. New stories appear hourly online. It’s the only thing anybody talks about on social media and it’s the only topic on the news pages. New websites are devoted entirely to the evolution of information on the subject. One site features only a global map, with small red faces placed upon the cities in which something occurred. Last time Malorie checked, there were over three hundred faces. Online, they are calling it ‘the Problem’. There exists the widespread communal belief that whatever ‘the Problem’ is, it definitely begins when a person sees something.

  Malorie resisted believing it as long as she could. The sisters argued constantly, Malorie citing the pages that derided mass hysteria, Shannon citing everything else. But soon Malorie had to relent, when the pages she frequented began to run stories about their own loved ones, and the authors of these blogs stepped forward to admit some concern.

  Cracks, Malorie thought then. Showing even in the sceptics.

  Days passed in which Malorie experienced a sort of double life. Neither sister left the house anymore. Both made sure the windows were covered. They watched CNN, MSNBC, and Fox until they physically couldn’t watch the same stories repeating themselves. And while Shannon grew more serious, and even grave, Malorie held on to a pinch of hope that this would all simply go away.

  But it didn’t. And it got worse.

  Three months into living like shut-ins, Malorie and Shannon’s worst fears came true when their parents stopped answering their phone. They didn’t answer e-mails, either.

  Malorie wanted to drive north to the Upper Peninsula. But Shannon refused.

  ‘We’re just going to have to hope they’re being safe, Malorie. We’re going to have to hope their phone was shut off. Driving anywhere right now would be dumb. Even to the store, and driving nine hours would be suicide.’

  ‘The Problem’ always resulted in suicide. Fox News had reported the word so often that they were now using synonyms. ‘Self-destruction’. ‘Self-immolation’. ‘Hari-kari’. One anchorman described it as ‘personal erasing’, a phrase that did not catch on. Instructions from the government were reprinted on the screen. A national curfew was mandated. People were advised to lock their doors, cover their windows, and, above all, not to look outside. On the radio, music was replaced entirely with discussions.

  A blackout, Malorie thinks. The world, the outdoors, is being shut down.

  Nobody has answers. Nobody knows what is going on. People are seeing something that drives them to hurt others. To hurt themselves.

  People are dying.

  But why?

  Malorie tries to calm down by focusing on the child growing inside her. She seems to be encountering every symptom mentioned in her baby book, With Child. Slight bleeding. Tender breasts. Fatigue. Shannon points out Malorie’s mood swings, but it’s the cravings that are driving her crazy. Too afraid to drive to the store, the sisters are stuck with the items they stockpiled shortly after purchasing the pregnancy test. But Malorie’s tastes have changed. Standard foods disgust her. So she combines things. Orange brownies. Chicken with cocktail sauce. Raw fish on toast. She dreams of ice cream. Often, looking towards the front door, she thinks of how easy it would be to get behind the wheel of the car and drive to the store. She knows it would only take fifteen minutes. But every time she leans towards doing it, the television delivers another harrowing story. And besides, who knows if the employees show up to the stores anymore?

  ‘What do you think people are seeing?’ Malorie asks Shannon.

  ‘I don’t know, Mal. I just don’t know.’

  The sisters ask eac
h other this question constantly. It’d be impossible to count the number of theories that have been birthed online. All of them scare the hell out of Malorie. Mental illness as a result of the radio waves in wireless technology is one. An erroneous evolutionary leap in humankind is another. New agers say it’s a matter of humanity being in touch with a planet that is close to exploding, or a sun that is dying.

  Some people believe there are creatures out there.

  The government is saying nothing except lock your doors.

  Malorie, alone, sits on the couch, slowly rubbing her belly, watching television. She worries that there is nothing positive to watch, that the baby feels her anxiety. With Child told her this would happen. The baby will experience the mother’s emotions. Still, she can’t look away from the screen. On a desk against the wall behind her, the computer is open and on. The radio plays softly. Together, it makes Malorie feel like she’s in a war room. At the centre of it all, while everything is falling apart. It’s overwhelming. And it’s becoming terrifying. There are no commercials anymore. And the newscasters pause for periods of time, shamelessly revealing their surprise as they receive updates on air.

  Above this buzzing din of media, Malorie hears Shannon moving on the second floor.

  Then, as Gabriel Townes, one of CNN’s primary anchors, silently reads a sheet of paper just handed him, Malorie hears a thud from above. She pauses.

  ‘Shannon!’ she calls. ‘Are you all right?’

  Gabriel Townes doesn’t look good. He’s been on television a lot lately. CNN let it be known that many of their reporters have stopped coming in to the station. Townes has been sleeping there. ‘We’ll go through this together’ is his new slogan. His hair is no longer perfect. He wears little make-up. More jarring is the exhausted way in which he delivers the news. He looks sunken.

  ‘Shannon? Come down here. It looks like Townes just got an update.’

  But there is no response. There is only silence from upstairs. Malorie rises and turns the television down.

  ‘Shannon?’

  Quietly, Gabriel Townes is discussing a beheading in Toledo. It’s less than eighty miles from where Malorie watches.

  ‘Shannon?! What are you doing up there?’

  There is no answer. Townes speaks quietly on the television. There are no accompanying graphics. No music. No inserts.

  Malorie, standing in the centre of the room, is looking toward the ceiling. She turns the volume of the television even lower, then turns the radio off, then walks towards the stairs.

  At the railing, she slowly looks up to the carpeted landing. The lights are off, but a thin ray of what looks like sunshine sprays upon the wall. Placing her hand on the wood, Malorie steps onto the carpet. She looks over her shoulder, to the front door, and imagines an amalgamation of every report she’s heard.

  She takes the stairs.

  ‘Shannon?’

  She is at the top now. Trembling. Stepping down the hall, she sees sunlight coming from Shannon’s bedroom. Slowly, she comes to the open door and looks inside.

  A corner of the window is exposed. A part of the blanket, having come loose, hangs.

  Malorie quickly looks away. There is a stillness, and a faint hum from the television below.

  ‘Shannon?’

  Down the hall, the bathroom door is open. The light is on. Malorie walks towards it. Once there, she holds her breath, then turns to look.

  Shannon is on the floor, facing the ceiling. A pair of scissors stick out of her chest. Blood surrounds her, pooling into the tiles on the floor. It seems like more blood than her body could hold.

  Malorie screams, clutching the doorframe and slides to the ground, wailing. The harsh light of the bathroom exposes every detail. The stillness of her sister’s eyes. The way Shannon’s shirt sinks into her chest with the scissor blades.

  Malorie crawls to the bathtub and throws up. Her sister’s blood sticks to her. She tries to wake Shannon, but she knows this will not happen. Malorie stands, speaking to Shannon, telling her she’s going to get help. Wiping blood from her hands, Malorie rushes downstairs and finds her phone on the couch. She calls the police. No answer. She calls again. No answer. Then she calls her parents. Still, no answer. She turns and runs to the front door. She must get help. Her hand clutches the doorknob, but she finds she cannot turn it.

  Dear God, Malorie thinks. Shannon would never do this willingly. Dear God, it’s true! Something is out there.

  And whatever Shannon saw, it must be close to the house.

  A piece of wood is all that separates her from what killed her sister. What her sister saw.

  Beyond the wood she hears wind. There are no other sounds. No cars. No neighbours. Only stillness.

  She is alone. Suddenly, agonizingly, she understands that she needs someone. She needs safety. She has to figure out how to leave this house.

  The image of Shannon blazing in her mind, Malorie rushes into the kitchen. There, under the sink, she pulls forth a stack of newspapers. She manically rifles through them. Breathing hard, her eyes wide, she checks the back of each one.

  Finally, she finds it.

  The classified. Riverbridge. Strangers inviting strangers into their home. Malorie reads it again. Then she reads it another time. She falls to her knees, clutching the paper.

  Riverbridge is twenty minutes away. Shannon saw something outside, and it killed her. Malorie must get herself and her child to safety.

  Suddenly, her heavy breathing gives way to an endless flow of hot tears. She does not know what to do. She has never been this afraid. Everything within her feels hot, like she’s burning.

  She cries loudly. Through wet eyes, she reads the ad again.

  And her tears fall upon the paper.

  ‘What is it, Boy?’

  ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘What? What did you hear? Speak!’

  ‘Listen.’

  Malorie does. She stops paddling and she listens. There is the wind. There is the river. There is the high squawking of birds far away and the occasional shuffle of small animals in the trees. There is her own breathing and her heart pounding, too. And beyond all this noise, from somewhere inside it, comes a sound she immediately fears.

  Something is in the water with them.

  ‘Don’t speak!’ Malorie hisses.

  The children are silent. She rests the paddle handles across her bent legs and is still.

  Something big is in the water before them. Something that rises and splashes.

  Malorie, for all the work she has done protecting the children from madness, wonders if she’s prepared them enough for the old realities.

  Like the wild animals that would reclaim a river man no longer frequents.

  The rowboat tips to Malorie’s left. She feels the heat of something touching the steel rim where the paddle ends rest.

  The birds in the trees go quiet.

  She holds her breath, thinking of the children.

  What plays with the nose of their boat?

  Is it a creature? she thinks, hysterical. Please, no, God, let it be an animal. Please!

  Malorie knows that if the children were to remove their blindfolds, if they were to scream before going mad, she still would not open her eyes.

  Without Malorie paddling, the rowboat moves again. She takes hold of a paddle and prepares herself to swing it.

  But then she hears the sound of the water splitting. The thing moves. It sounds farther away. Malorie is breathing so hard she gasps.

  She hears a fumbling amongst the branches at the bank to her left and imagines the thing has crawled onto shore.

  Or maybe it walked.

  Is a creature standing there? Studying the limbs of the trees and mud at its feet?

  Thoughts like these remind her of Tom. Sweet Tom, who spent every hour of every day trying to figure out how to survive in this awful new world. She wishes he were here. He would know what made that sound.

  It’s a black bear, she tells herself.
>
  The songs of the birds return. Life in the trees continues.

  ‘You did well,’ Malorie pants. Her voice is caged with stress.

  She begins paddling and soon the sound of the Girl shuffling her puzzle pieces joins in with the sound of the paddles in the water.

  She imagines the children, blinded by their black cloths, the sun embarrassing them with visibility, drifting downstream. Her own blindfold is tight against her head, damp. It irritates the skin by her ears. Sometimes, she is able to ignore this. At others, all she can think about is scratching. Despite the cold, she regularly dips her fingertips into the river and moistens the cloth where it chafes. Just above her ears. The bridge of her nose. The back of her head where the knot is. The wet cloth helps, but Malorie will never fully get used to the feel of the cloth against her face. Even her eyes, she thinks, paddling, even her eyelashes grow weary of the fabric.

  A black bear, she tells herself again.

  But she isn’t so sure.

  Debates like these have governed every action Malorie has taken for the last four and half years. From the moment she decided to answer the classified in the paper and first arrived at the house in Riverbridge. Every noise she’s heard since has delivered visions of things much worse than any earthly animal.

  ‘You did a good job,’ Malorie says to the children, shaking. She means to reassure them, but her voice betrays her fear.

  Riverbridge.

  Malorie has been to this area once, several years before. It was a New Year’s Eve party. She hardly recalls the name of the girl who threw it. Marcy something. Maribel, maybe. Shannon knew her, and Shannon drove that night. The roads were slushy. Dirty grey banks of snow framed the side streets. People used ice from the roof for their mixed drinks. Someone got half-naked and wrote the year 2009 in the snow. Now it’s summer’s peak, the middle of July, and Malorie is driving. Scared, alone, and grieving.

  The drive over is agonizing. Travelling no more than fifteen miles per hour, Malorie frantically looks for street signs, for other cars. She closes her eyes, then opens them again, still driving.