Bird Box

by Josh Malerman

  ‘Did you have electricity as well?’ Felix is asking as Malorie enters the living room.

  Gary is sitting on the couch. Seeing Malorie, he smiles.

  ‘This,’ Gary says, fanning a hand towards her, ‘is the angel who felt my features when I entered. I have to admit, the human contact nearly made me cry.’

  Malorie thinks Gary talks a little like an actor. Theatrical flourishes.

  ‘And so did a vote really decide my fate?’ Gary asks.

  ‘Yes,’ Tom says.

  Gary nods.

  ‘In the house I came from, no such courtesies were extended. If someone had an idea, they went with it, rather vigorously, whether or not everybody approved. It’s refreshing to meet people who have retained some of the civility of our former lives.’

  ‘I voted against it,’ Don says abruptly.

  ‘Did you?’ Gary asks.

  ‘Yes. I did. Seven people under one roof is enough.’

  ‘I understand.’

  One of the huskies gets up and goes to Gary. Gary rubs the fur behind its ears.

  Tom begins explaining to him the same things he once explained to Malorie. Hydroelectricity. The supplies in the cellar. The lack of a phone book. How George died. After a while, Gary begins talking about a former housemate of his. A ‘troubled man’ who didn’t believe the creatures were harmful at all.

  ‘He believed that the people’s reaction to them was psychosomatic. In other words, all this insanity fuss isn’t caused by the creatures at all, but rather by the dramatic people who see them.’

  Insanity fuss, Malorie thinks. Do these two dismissive words belong to Gary’s former housemate?

  Or are they Gary’s?

  ‘I’d like to tell you guys about my experience at my former place,’ Gary continues. ‘But I warn you, it’s a dark one.’

  Malorie wants to hear this. They all do. Gary runs his fingers through his hair. Then he begins.

  ‘There was no ad that we answered and we weren’t as young as you all. We had no communal sensibility, no group effort. My brother Duncan has a friend who took the Russia Report very seriously. He was one of the early believers. It went well with his conspiracy theories and paranoia that the government or somebody is out to get us all. As goes myself, I still have moments where I can’t believe it’s happening. And who can blame me? I’m over forty years old. So used to the life I was living, I never fathomed one like this. I resisted it. But Kirk, my brother’s friend, was certain of it from the very start. And nothing, it seemed, would sway him. One afternoon Duncan called and told me Kirk suggested we gather at his place for a few days, or until we learned more about this “thing”.

  ‘“What thing?” I asked.

  ‘“Gary, it’s all over the television.”

  ‘“What thing, Duncan? The thing that happened in Russia? You can’t be serious.”

  ‘“C’mon,” Duncan said. “We’ll throw back some beers, eat some pizza, and humour him. You’ve got nothing to lose.”

  ‘I told him no thank you. Hanging out with crazy Kirk as he analysed sensational stories didn’t sound like a good time to me. But I showed up soon enough.

  ‘I’d heard the reports just like everybody in the country did. They started to worry me. There were just so many of them. Still, I foolishly attempted to maintain my disbelief. These kinds of things just don’t happen. But then came a report that forced me to take action. It was the one about the sisters in Alaska. You might be wondering why it took me so long to be convinced. Alaska was relatively late, but Alaska was also an American report and I’m just provincial enough not to worry until it happens close to home. Even the reporter was clearly scared of what he was saying. Yes, even the man delivering the news did so trembling.

  ‘You know the story. A woman saw her two elderly neighbours, sisters, leaving the house. She assumed they had gone for their daily walk. Three hours later, she heard on the radio that the sisters were in front of the hospital, crouched on the stone steps, trying to bite people as they passed. The woman drove to the hospital, fancying herself closer to the sisters than anyone else and likely able to help. But that wasn’t the case. And the photos on CNN showed the woman with her face removed, literally on the sidewalk beside her bloody skull. Beyond her were the two old ladies, dead, shot by the police. That image chilled me. Such normal people. Such everyday environs.

  ‘For Kirk, the Alaskan incident validated all paranoid fantasies. Despite my own growing fear, I wasn’t ready to exchange the life I’d known for this new, militia-like existence he was espousing. I was prepared to drape the windows, lock the doors, and hide, but Kirk was already coming up with plans to combat what he believed was an “invasion” – whether that be alien or otherwise was never clear. He talked about weapons, gear, and guns like a veteran soldier. Of course he wasn’t one; he’d never enlisted in anything in his life.’

  Gary pauses. He seems to ponder.

  ‘Soon the house was crowded with quasi-militant males. Kirk was enjoying his newfound position of general, and I watched a lot of the buffoonery from the sidelines. I made a habit of letting Duncan know he ought to keep his distance. A man like Kirk was liable to send his friends into harm’s way. The men grew increasingly contentious, juiced with the fantasy of overthrowing the villains of Kirk’s “invasion”. Days passed, and yet nothing came of their boisterous claims that they would protect the city, eliminate the cause of this global madness, and secure their place in history as the band who fixed the “big problem”. Yet, there was one man in the house who took action for what he believed. His name was Frank, and Frank believed that the creatures Kirk prepared for were no threat at all. Still, he came to the house, fearful, he admitted, of the inevitable lawlessness that could sweep the country.

  ‘As Kirk planned useless daily drills, Frank became something of a shut-in, hardly leaving the bedroom on the second floor. And in there, he wrote. Day and night Frank wrote with pencil, pen, marker, and make-up. One day, walking the upstairs hall, I heard something behind his closed door. It was a furious sound, laborious, angry, unflagging in its pace. I eased the door open a crack and saw him hunched over a desk, whispering about the “cultish, overreactive” society he loathed as he scribbled. I had no way of knowing what he was writing. But I wanted to find out.

  ‘I talked to Duncan about it. My brother’s face was painted with ridiculous camouflage. By then he was truly infected with Kirk’s ravings. He didn’t believe Frank was a threat. Frank who bugled phrases like mass hysteria and psychosomatic idolatry as Kirk and the others pantomimed target practice, weaponless, in the basement. Everyone dismissed Frank as a useless pacifist.’

  Gary runs his hands through his hair again.

  ‘I set out to find out what Frank was up to in his room. I began looking for an opportunity to read his secret writings.

  ‘What do you think would happen to a man who is already mad if he were to see the creatures outside? Do you think he’d be impervious to it, his mind already fractured? Or do you suppose his madness would reach another, higher echelon of insane? Perhaps the mentally ill will inherit this new world, unable to be broken any more than they already are. I don’t know any better than you do.’

  Gary sips from a glass of water.

  ‘My moment presented itself in this way. Kirk and the others were occupied in the basement. Frank was in the bath. I made my decision to snoop quickly. I entered his room and found his writings in the desk drawer. This was no little feat, as, by then, I was frightened of the man. The others may have dismissed him, found him laughable, but I suspected more brutish possibilities therein. I began reading. Soon I was overwhelmed with his words. No matter how long ago Frank had begun writing, it seemed impossible that he had already written this much. Dozens of notebooks, all in various colours, each more angry than the last. Tiny cursive couplets were followed by giant highlighted phrases, all declaring that the creatures were not to be feared. He referred to the rest of us as “those with small minds” who “n
eeded to be exterminated”. He was dangerous, indeed. Suddenly, hearing him rise from the bath, I hurried out of his room. Maybe Duncan wasn’t so wrong to fall in with Kirk. Those notebooks showed me there were much worse reactions to the new world than his.’

  Gary breathes deep. He wipes his lips with the back of his hand.

  ‘When we woke up the next day, the drapes had been pulled down.’

  Cheryl gasps.

  ‘The doors were unlocked.’

  Don starts to say something.

  ‘And Frank was gone. He’d taken the notebook with him.’

  ‘Oh fuck,’ Felix says.

  Gary nods.

  ‘Was anybody hurt?’ Tom asks.

  Gary’s eyes grow watery, but he maintains himself.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘Nobody. Which I’m sure Frank would have included in his notes.’

  Malorie brings a hand to her belly.

  ‘Why did you leave?’ Don asks impatiently.

  ‘I left,’ Gary says, ‘because Kirk and the others talked at great length of tracking Frank down. They wanted to kill him for what he had done.’

  The room is quiet.

  ‘I knew then I had to get out. That house was ruined. Plagued. Yours, it seems, is not. For this,’ Gary says, looking at Malorie, ‘I thank you for taking me in.’

  ‘I didn’t let you in,’ Malorie says. ‘We all did.’

  What kind of man, she wonders, would leave his brother behind?

  She looks to Don. To Cheryl. To Olympia. Has Gary’s story endeared him to those who voted not to let him in? Or has it justified their fears?

  Insanity fuss.

  Tom and Felix are asking Gary questions about his story. Jules pipes in, too. But Cheryl has left the room. And Don, who has something to say about everything, isn’t speaking much. He just stares.

  A divide, Malorie thinks, is growing.

  Exactly when it began doesn’t matter to her. It’s visible now. Gary brought with him a briefcase. A story. And, somehow, a divide.

  Malorie wakes with her eyes closed. It’s not as difficult to do as it once was. Consciousness comes. The sounds, sensations, and smells of life. Sights, too. Malorie knows that, even with your eyes closed, there is sight. She sees peaches, yellows, the colours of distant sunlight penetrating flesh. At the corners of her vision are greys.

  It sounds like she’s outside. She feels cool open air on her face. Chapped lips. Dry throat. When is the last time she drank? Her body feels okay. Rested. There is a dull throbbing coming from somewhere to the left of her neck. Her shoulder. She brings her right hand to her forehead. When her fingers touch her face, she understands they are wet and dirty. In fact, her whole back feels wet. Her shirt is drenched in water.

  A bird sings overhead. Eyes still closed, Malorie turns towards it.

  The children are breathing hard. It sounds like they are working on something.

  Are they drawing? Building? Playing?

  Malorie sits up.

  ‘Boy?’

  Her first thought sounds like a joke. An impossibility. A mistake. Then she realizes it’s exactly what’s happening.

  They’re breathing hard because they’re rowing.

  ‘Boy!’ Malorie yells. Her voice sounds bad. Like her throat is made of wood.

  ‘Mommy!’

  ‘What is going on?!’

  The rowboat. The rowboat. The rowboat. You’re on the river. You passed out. You PASSED OUT.

  Hooking her lame shoulder over the edge, she cups a handful of water and brings it to her mouth. Then she is on her knees, over the edge, scooping handfuls in quick succession. She is breathing hard. But the greys have gone away. And her body feels a little better.

  She turns to the children.

  ‘How long? How long?’

  ‘You fell asleep, Mommy,’ the Girl says.

  ‘You had bad dreams,’ the Boy says.

  ‘You were crying.’

  Malorie’s mind is moving too fast. Did she miss anything?

  ‘How long?’ she yells again.

  ‘Not long,’ the Boy says.

  ‘Are your blindfolds on? Speak!’

  ‘Yes,’ they say.

  ‘The boat got stuck,’ the Girl says.

  Dear God, Malorie thinks.

  Then she calms herself enough to ask, ‘How did we get unstuck?’

  She finds the Girl’s small body. She follows her arms to her hands. Then she reaches across the rowboat and feels for the Boy.

  They’re each using one paddle. They’re rowing together.

  ‘We did it, Mommy!’ the Girl says.

  Malorie is on her knees. She realizes she smells bad. Like a bar. Like a bathroom.

  Like vomit.

  ‘We untangled us,’ the Boy says.

  Malorie is with him now. Her shaking hands are upon his.

  ‘I’m hurt,’ she says out loud.

  ‘What?’ the Boy asks.

  ‘I need you two to move back to where you were before Mommy fell asleep. Right now.’

  The children stop rowing. The Girl presses against her as she goes to the back bench. Malorie helps her.

  Then Malorie is sitting on the middle bench again.

  Her shoulder is throbbing but it’s not as bad as it was before. She needed rest. She wasn’t giving it to her body. So her body took it.

  In the fog of her waking mind, Malorie is growing colder, more frightened. What if it happens again?

  Have they passed the point they are travelling to?

  The paddles in her hands again, Malorie breathes deeply before rowing.

  Then she starts to cry. She cries because she passed out. She cries because a wolf attacked her. She cries for too many reasons to locate. But she knows part of it is because she’s discovered that the children are capable of surviving, if only for a moment, on their own.

  You’ve trained them well, she thinks. The thought, often ugly, makes her proud.

  ‘Boy,’ she says, through her tears, ‘I need you to listen again. Okay?’

  ‘I am, Mommy!’

  ‘And you, Girl, I need you to do the same.’

  ‘I am, too!’

  Is it possible, Malorie thinks, that we’re okay? Is it possible that you passed out and woke up and still everything is okay?

  It doesn’t feel true. Doesn’t go with the rules of the new world. Something is out there on this river with them. Madmen. Beasts. Creatures. How much more sleep would have lured them all the way into the boat?

  Mercifully, she is rowing again. But what lurks feels closer now.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, crying, rowing.

  Her legs are soaked with piss, water, blood, and vomit. But her body is rested. Somehow, Malorie thinks, despite the cruel laws of this unforgiving world, she’s been delivered a break.

  The feeling of relief lasts the duration of one row. Then Malorie is alert, and scared, all over again.

  Cheryl is upset.

  Malorie hears her talking to Felix in the room down the hall. The other housemates are downstairs. Gary has taken to sleeping in the dining room, despite the hard wood floors. Since his arrival, two weeks ago, Don has warmed up to him greatly. Malorie doesn’t know how she feels about that. He’s probably with Gary now.

  But down the hall, Cheryl whispers hurriedly. She sounds scared. It feels like everybody is. More than usual. The mood in the house, once supported mightily by Tom’s optimism, gets darker every day. Sometimes, Malorie thinks, the mood extends deeper than fear. That’s how Cheryl sounds right now. Malorie considers joining them, perhaps even to comfort Cheryl, but decides against it.

  ‘I do it every day, Felix, because I like to do it. It’s my job. And the few minutes I step outside are precious to me. It reminds me that I once had a real job. One I woke up for. One I took pride in. Feeding the birds is the only thing I have that connects me to the life I used to live.’

  ‘And it gives you a chance to be outside.’

  ‘And it gives me a chance to be outs
ide, yes.’

  Cheryl tries to control her voice, then goes on.

  She is outside, she tells Felix, ready to feed the birds. She is feeling along the wall for the box. In her right hand are apple slices from a can in the cellar. The front door has closed behind her. Jules waits inside. Blindfolded, Cheryl walks slowly, using the house for balance. The bricks are coarse against her fingertips. Soon they will give way to a portion of wood panelling from which a metal hook protrudes. This is where the birds hang.

  They are already cooing. They always do when she gets this close. Cheryl heartily volunteered to feed the birds when discussion of the chore came up. She’s been doing it every day since. In a way, it feels like the birds are her own. She speaks to them, filling them in on trivial events from the house. Their sweet response calms her like music once did. She can gauge how close she is to the box, she tells Felix, by how loudly they sing.

  But this time she hears something besides their coos.

  At the end of the front walk she hears an ‘abandoned step’. It’s the only way she can explain it to Felix. It sounds to her like someone was walking, was planning to walk farther, then suddenly stopped.

  Cheryl, always on high alert whenever she feeds the birds, is surprised to realize she is trembling.

  She says, ‘Is anybody there?’

  There is no answer.

  She thinks of returning to the front door. She’ll tell the others she’s too freaked out to do this today.

  Instead, she waits.

  And there is no further sound.

  In the box, the birds are active. She calls to the them nervously.

  ‘Hey hey, guys. Hey hey.’

  The quiver in her voice scares her. Instinctively, she lowers her head and raises the hand holding the apples to protect her, as though something were about to touch her face. She takes a step. Then another. Finally, she reaches the box. Sometimes, she tells Felix, the walk between the front door and the box is like floating in outer space. Anchorless.

  Today she feels impossibly far from land.

  ‘Hey hey,’ she says, opening the box’s lid just enough to be able to drop a few of the apple slices. Normally she hears the pitter patter of their tiny feet as they rush for the food. Today she does not.