Hollow Kingdom

by Kira Jane Buxton

  Snatching the phone in my beak, I launched into the air and flew to the bedroom window. Shut. I slammed into it, bashing my wing and the phone, slick in my beak, feeling it slip and plummet to the carpet. Focus. Window. Still shut. I dove for the phone and suddenly Big Jim was in the doorway, more alive and not alive than I’d seen him in a long, long time. His neck was outstretched, craned unnaturally forward in that starving-vulture way. I flashed back to the Walgreens MoFos and gagged. Big Jim’s eye was glowing red, wide, and lasered on my beak. A thick bone crack sounded out and his lower jaw released, flapping down and hanging by a thin strip of gum, freeing a river of red. He shook his head, his jaw flapping loose, white-pearl sliver of bone exposed. Blood streaked the walls. I clasped the phone tight as I could and flapped in the air, wing throbbing as I held my space. Big Jim let out a guttural roar and charged, the twisted fingers of his remaining hand extended like hawkbill knives. He pounded toward me, baring his yellowed teeth, cavernous jaw like an unspeakable red cave. Inches away from my feathers, so close my head spun from the wormy stench that was Big Jim as I ducked under his armpit and blasted through the bedroom door, diving down the stairs and toward the laundry room. Dennis stood his ground in the living room, hackles bristling like blades, barking sharp and fast. I yelled a muffled “DENNIS! SIT!” as loud as I could, praying I’d done the work to save his life. Big Jim’s pounding footsteps stirred the air near my tail feathers; I felt him right behind me, on me, felt his breath and his snarls, seconds from yanking me from the air, shoving me into that terrible, terrible sanguine cavity. I tore through the laundry room, dropping the phone like a sunbaked stone. I shot bullet-fast from the tiny exit window, scraping my head on the window frame. Big Jim unleashed a raptor’s scream into the yard through the tiny window and bashed his head against its frame. I swung back around, reentering the house by shooting through the kitchen window. I careened past Dennis, who barked frantically from a solid sit. Then I rocketed like a speeding black torpedo into the door with everything I had.

  The door slammed shut.

  Everything fell silent. No sounds came from the laundry room with the phone and what was left of Big Jim. Dennis panted silently, his legs aquiver. Nothing more was said. I couldn’t go on pretending that nothing had happened and I couldn’t lock the laundry room door, which meant we were no longer safe in our own home.

  I just couldn’t fix Big Jim alone.

  With nothing but the whoosh of wing, I gingerly plucked Dennis’s leash from the wall and, pinching the mechanism with my beak, affixed it to his collar. Grabbing the looped handle in my feet, I lifted into the air and flew forward, Dennis plodding beneath me. Dennis pushed through the rickety back door and our gate in silence, past the Japanese maple where I first learned to fly, and we made our way along the sidewalk and the cement, abandoning everything we’d ever known and loved.

  We left slowly to the gentle song of lugubrious paw pads and the viscous beat of crestfallen wings, away from our home and our hearts.

  It was time. Time to face the terrifying unknown. Time we had answers. And I knew who we needed to hunt down.

  Chapter 6

  S.T.

  Outside the Small Craftsman Home in Ravenna, Seattle, Washington, USA

  So there we were. A rejected crow with an identity crisis partnering a bloodhound with the IQ of boiled pudding. We were perhaps the most pathetic excuse for an attempted murder on the face of the earth. Here we were launching ourselves into a world we’d never known, one that had new teeth and no edges and a recent and significant overhaul. I led Dennis along the sidewalk, passing dead traffic lights, Nargatha’s fairytale house, and the yard with the now dusty swing set, releasing an involuntary cackle as I realized I was following cultural norms that may not apply anymore. With no cars in sight, we didn’t need to look left or right while crossing the road, or halt at stop signs, but I did it anyway, because that’s how I was raised and I had to hold on to something other than the leathery loop of Dennis’s leash. The gutters choked on trash that blanketed the sidewalks. It had baked and cooled, leaving the air pregnant with saccharine decay. Obviously, the garbage-collecting MoFos had been at the NyQuil. When Big Jim took NyQuil, he slept through all four of his alarms and I’d have to wake him by pelting beer bottle caps at his head. Big Jim. The trauma of nearly being eaten by my best friend was the single greatest pain I had ever known. It felt as though a sword had twisted itself through my papery skin. I now had learned the pain of betrayal, a pain that changes your very cells, writing itself into your DNA. All around us, the grass was tall, wicked weeds spiraling and impish, nature’s barbed wire. If things were hiding in its chaos, they chose to remain invisible. Every few flaps, my feathers shivered with uncertainty.

  Dennis seemed keen to be outside again, preoccupied with his nasal adventures, trailing his spongy black whiffer along the ground, pendulous wrinkles swinging from side to side. He had a lot to catch up on. Now and then, I tentatively dropped the leash and soared above to do recon, checking out what lay directly ahead of us. Looking for the dark outline of a predator. Looking for signs of twisted limbs, hungry vermillion eyes, and neck bones with no rules. Looking for the healthy MoFos I knew were out there. And most of all, listening.

  I reluctantly tuned in to Aura, listening to the boastful hoarding stories of a magpie. A Townsend’s warbler couple fretted about whether the eagle would return. Black-capped chickadees warned of a large troupe of Hollows clustered around a shop called Scarecrow Video. Hollows are what most fauna have long called MoFos, named for their dissociative state. In the natural world, MoFos are mistaken for milky-eyed machines intent on destruction, empty vessels that have lost their inner intelligence—the walking blind, dumb animals. What utter blasphemy! A pie in the face of the species that invented a magic box that can nuke a Hot Pocket in seconds! Pigeons bickered about personal space. A red-breasted nuthatch sang a song about digestive health, chuckling to himself between breaths. There was excited twitter about “The One Who Opens Doors.” And then, through Aura, I heard the greatest news of the century. The description came as news of distant explosions fighting one another, bang against bang, described as a war of bombs, and then my veins flooded with adrenaline because I knew there was only one species who’d mastered the art of obliterating things, of puppeteering weapons to do their bidding, the bureaucratic art of war. MoFos! I knew it! Healthy ones that could drive a tank and release a nuke! Somewhere they were out there, fighting back, gaining ground, and reclaiming their territory, which meant that somewhere, someone in a lab coat was working on a cure. My heart soared. I listened more, puffed with happiness. I could hear crows calling to one another, sharing information about caches and spreading valuable intel about food stops. I listened for as long as I could handle, waiting for specifics about the heroic survivor MoFos, but the pressing topic never returned and it was exhausting getting bombarded with a constant butt-splosion of information.

  I told Dennis to sit under the shade of a newly budding Japanese cherry tree, launching into the air for more recon. I perched on the moss-green roof of the university public library. Smoke rose in black coils from the horizon far in the distance, too far to be of immediate concern. I had a clear view of the library’s surrounding area; eye to eye with the tree line, I peered down at parking lots and a patchwork of slate-gray rooftops. Not far away, the spire of the Blessed Sacrament Church caught the sun with its glacial green. I cleared my throat, stomach suddenly twisting into pretzel shapes. I spread my wings, opened my beak, and fluttered my gular—this sounds ruder than it is, it’s actually just me flapping my neck muscles to stay cool. The burnt matchsticks that are my legs started to shake. Yup, I was a fella with stage fright. But, Dennis and I had plans, and I needed information desperately. So, I took in a deep breath, ruffled my plumage, and called out to a world I’ve never been a part of: the natural world.

  “Can someone tell me how to find Onida? Please, I’m looking for Onida, The One Searched For!”

&nb
sp; Silence. I waited a minute and then decided to try again, calling out louder with a sprinkle more bravado, a touch more bass in my tone.

  The silence became eerie. The symphony of Aura ceased. A gust of wind blew through the tree crowns, rustling the branches of the cherry trees. The trees whispered the words of a sharp-edged warning, beware, beware. I wished they were more specific. I looked down to check on Dennis, who was lying under the tree, sniffing at the sky. Something did feel off. I felt like there were eyes on me. Not literally like when I cached Big Jim’s eyeball, but like someone or something was watching me in the shadows. I tried one more time to get my post into Aura, donning a bit of an accent this time, a little soap opera flair to my delivery.

  “Please! It is a matter of life and death! I must unearth Onida!”

  There was no response. More breathless silence.

  Just then, an Anna’s hummingbird darted past me, a bullet in mother-of-pearl who shrieked, “Cheese cups, ass clubs, keep away!” Hummingbirds have a reputation for being curt and vague, but I began to wonder if this one had been at some fermented fruit. Turns out I didn’t have to wait long to decipher her warning.

  The big black doors at the top of the stone steps to the building of books swung open. Under the arches of the great white structure, under ivory pillars and large green letters bearing the library’s name, loomed an enormous mass. It let out a deep huff, a low grumble that made the earth tremor. It squinted to orient itself in the bright sunlight.

  Ruuuhuuuh.

  Ruuuhuuuuufff.

  A fucking grizzly.

  My eyes locked in on the Japanese cherry tree, below it to Dennis, now standing on four paws, body posture tense and erect and facing the great tawny mass that had emerged from the library.

  Cheese and shit niblets, Dennis, don’t make a fucking sound. On cue, Dennis let out a burst of booming barks that seemed to say, “Fuck off, you douche flute!” which is exactly what a grizzly the size of a jumbo vending machine likes to hear after rousing from a nap. The bear spun toward Dennis. Even from this distance, I could see a ripple streak through the copper tips of its fur. It rose to its hind legs and started huffing, the silence clouded with guttural growls. Dennis responded by barking louder, faster, spinning on his axis. The bear moaned—a long, pointed accusation—huffed harder, stopped to sniff the air. Then it flattened its ears to its head and expelled a roar, a roar that tore through the bones of the building and ran up my spine. Long mustard-brown fangs were all I needed to see. The bear coughed out more woofs, panting frustration. It slapped the stone ground with its club-like paws, which was grizzly language I understood.

  It was going to kill Dennis.

  The bear reared back and charged at Dennis full tilt. I cried out to him. The mass of muscle and brown stopped just before reaching Dennis’s front paws, lifting its head high into the air, lowering it to train its eyes on him. It lunged at him with open mouth and mammoth paws in flight, great black nose twitching. Dennis barked, darting from side to side to avoid the swipes, saliva frothing on his jowls. The bear began to circle Dennis, backing him up against the Japanese cherry tree. I didn’t have much time.

  Think, S.T. Think.

  I dropped from the library roof, conserving my energy by hijacking a ride on a puff of air. Beak-first, I made a beeline for the grizzly’s head. As I neared, I filled with smell—the smell of clover, wet grass, raw liver, putrid carcass—then right as I neared Dennis’s tail, the bear threw its weight into a paw swipe. The blow smashed Dennis across his ribs, sending him rolling across the library lawn. He yelped, a string of tight squeals that I heard in my heart.

  Dennis.

  I slipped past the bear’s right ear, maneuvered a tight mid-air flip turn, and drove my beak into the bear’s backside. The bear lifted its teeth skyward and bellowed at the sun. Pivoting on hind legs, it lunged at me fang-first, missing my wing by an inch. I rose above the bear, snatching its ear in my foot and yanking hard. The bear whipped its paw up, driving a force of air that thrust me sideways. I recovered, lifting to safety. Still on hind legs, the grizzly woofed and huffed at me, rage igniting amber in its eyes. I stole a glance at Dennis. He was back on all paws, shaking off the hit, steadying, and no doubt preparing to put himself back into the jaws of an adult bear.

  I was too focused on Dennis. The bear smashed me midair, giant club of a paw punching me through space and time and into the trunk of the Japanese cherry tree. I hit the tree with a thwack and toppled to the dirt, completely winded. A sharp pain streaked up my beak. Fluttering my gular, I righted myself at the tree base to see the bear lumbering toward Dennis. My eyes darted.

  Come on, S.T. Do something!

  Snapping up a huge silvery rock the size of a whole German boob in my feet, I soared high, high up into the air, wings burning from the sun and sting, and I released that fucking boob rock like a World War II B-24 dropping its load. The rock struck the grizzly’s skull with a dull clonk. I might as well have kicked it in the nuts. The bear got very, very angry. It lunged at me from below, roaring from its pancreas, arms swinging, mustard fangs snapping at my back. I fluttered above it for a few seconds, air-dodging the blows, my wing burning with a staggering ache. I counted one, two, three, then whisked over the bear’s head and shot right over Dennis.

  “ZzzzZZZt! Dennis! Here, boy!” I screeched.

  I heard Dennis’s frantic panting under my tail feathers as I dove over the library lawn, my shadow a phantom below. Crow chased by bloodhound chased by grizzly bear across the university public library entrance lawn and across the street and then tearing across the stretch of green that’s the university playground. Never in my life have I ever been happy to see a Honda Civic, but today was a day of firsts, and I dove beneath its undercarriage, below its royal-blue body, whistling for Dennis. Dennis skidded into the Civic’s passenger door, then stuffed his wrinkled mass under the car with me, where we waited for an enraged apex predator to exact its revenge.

  In an instant, the air was filled with calls. Screams, threats, warnings, made a deafeningly horrid symphony. I peeked out from behind a rear tire to see the sky inky with bodies, all of them hovering above the air, flapping and cawing and pelting rocks and bottle caps and shoes and Gatorade and condoms at the stunned bear. The bear snarled and swiped, but quickly realized it was outnumbered as the crows intensified their attack, caws getting louder and louder. Suddenly the bear lowered its head, shook its fur, and cantered back toward the black library doors, a sky full of black demons driving it on.

  “Enough!” screamed someone with the voice of God, or James Earl Jones.

  And the crows stopped. Quiet trapped us in its net. You could’ve heard a mouse fart. They retreated, disappearing into the trees. I looked over at Dennis, who was licking his side vigorously. A flap of skin hung down from his ribs where the grizzly had clobbered him.

  I inched out from under the Honda and lifted myself high enough into the air to see the grizzly back at the library doors. Flashbacks from the Discovery Channel haunted me, stirring up the Latin name for the grizzly bear, Ursus arctos horribilis. Horribilis indeed. As the bear paced and then started to lumber away from the library, three brown blobs emerged from the doors to shadow her. Cubs. Great, she reproduced—there are more of those fuzzy death-potatoes out in society, helping themselves to public facilities that are funded by our hard-earned tax dollars. Pffft. My mind belatedly translated the hummingbird’s cry of “Cheese cups, ass clubs, keep away!” to the more plausible “She’s up, has cubs, keep away!” I’ll admit I had been a bit quick to judge her sobriety.

  I lowered to terra firma and watched Dennis licking and whining at the angry gash in his side. Puttering along the curb where the Honda was parked, I located a brightly colored flyer for the “High Times U.S. Cannabis Cup in Seattle, Washington.” Snatching it in my beak, I hopped back to the Civic and whistled, summoning Dennis to inch himself from the car’s comatose body. I plodded toward him and gingerly pressed the High Times flyer to his side. H
e snapped instinctually, and I sprang backward.

  “Easy, Dennis. Easy, boy,” I said, mimicking Big Jim every time he loaded Dennis into the bathtub as I hopped onto the sink to avoid a tidal wave of water. Big Jim was always too busy wrestling the hound and camouflaging the bathroom in soapsuds to listen to me explain Dennis’s predicament. It wasn’t the bath Dennis was afraid of—it was the plughole. He was afraid he would get sucked down into the dark and we wouldn’t find him. Dennis was onto something; I once cached the house key down there and it was never seen again.

  Dennis let out a tight growl.

  “Good boy, Dennis. It’s okay. I gotcha,” I whispered, shuffling toward him. Pain was licking up my wing in electric streaks, and my injury wasn’t half as bad as Dennis’s. Other than a sharp whine, he didn’t protest anymore, seeming to trust me, to accept my medical assistance. The prismatic Cannabis Cup flyer stuck fast to his wet wound.

  “Brother Blackwing,” came the imposing voice. I grimaced. Both titles bothered me. I don’t fully identify as a crow, finding the label to be overly simplistic. And I was not his brother. A constellation of shining black eyes tracked me from the bigleaf maples above. College crows. Dennis seemed too distracted by his pain to care. The maples themselves watched silently, gently breathing in some of the tension. Trees are known peace-keepers, though not very good with secrets.