Storks

by Alan Spencer

  Carter imagined scenario after scenario, each of them ending with his ass pecked to death. Life was strange, he thought, how it worked out for him. He accidentally killed his girlfriend, Kimberley Munyard. He left town at seventeen, afraid of Dean Munyard's promise to kill him if he didn't leave town. He hid from his parents, from his mistakes, and when he finally tried to live life again, he had to face this impossible onslaught of madness.

  The Munyards.

  Lola Brewster.

  Storks.

  Ten minutes turned into fifteen. Fifteen into thirty. The storks weren't ransacking anything anymore. There was silence, except for the cry of babies kept secure in the nests located in the roof. If he got out of this alive, he wouldn't live like he died too alongside Kimberley. He wasn't a murderer. He was a stupid kid who made a terrible mistake. There wasn't anything vicious in his heart.

  I'm not going to die in this basement.

  I'm not going to be killed by a bunch of fucking storks.

  Carter grabbed the chainsaw, pulled the cord, and stormed into the larder with the chainsaw swinging.

  What he saw were hundreds of storks laying on the floor, writhing in pain. They wailed, crooned, and bemoaned their sorrow.

  He didn't put it together until afterwards.

  One by one, the pops, the sounds of internal rupture, like a pipe bomb going off underwater, the storks exploded. Wings, beaks, feathers, and hot guts burst until each and every stork was splatter and mess on the walls.

  They had torn through the boxes of food and ate dry grains of rice.

  And paid the price.

  Carter imagined the rice expanding in their bellies, then exploding them.

  Picturing it made him smile.

  He made haste for the basement stairs and out of the horrible mansion.

  EPILOGUE

  Helicopters flew overhead. Military choppers. Local police from neighboring counties were collecting survivors and rushing them to the hospital. Carter helped a local volunteer group, guided by firefighters, to save the babies tucked up in nests in the roof that was bound to collapse if one took the wrong step. It was well into the night before Carter was sent to the hospital to be checked over for injuries.

  The only surviving local officer greeted him in the emergency room. He told him how Carter's family died. Killed by the storks. Almost everybody in town was killed by them. The officer did his best not to break down and cry, mentioning how horrible everything was.

  The officer also attempted an explanation. "Turns out a chemical spill affected the local Wood Storks. Some chemical that's potent enough to turn storks into killing machines. The CDC is all over this. The media will turn this into a circus. But you saved lives, Carter. What you did was brave. You killed those fucking birds. You saved those babies. I guess the storks experienced a reversal of instincts. Our babies became their babies. And they did everything to protect them. None of that matters, because it's over now. You're a hero."

  He talked a little more about the events, then the officer excused himself. He had other matters to attend to.

  Carter nodded off in the emergency room bed waiting for a doctor. He was exhausted after his nerves being cranked so high for so long. When he woke, it was with a prick to the arm. A needle. Seconds, it took for the drugs, or whatever poison she injected into his bloodstream to paralyze him.

  Lola was dressed in a nurse's scrubs, nurse's hat, and black leggings. Still trying to tantalize him with her body.

  "William, you promised you'd do it to me again. You make me so hot. It's time for you to lick it up."

  Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?

  She got up into the bed with him, straddling him. She held him by his shirt collar. A line of blood from where she hit her head earlier split her features. Her eyes brightened, like mirrors taking on light.

  "I finally understood that you didn't love me, William. You only wanted men. But you owed me one last pleasure. You gave it to me when you took your final breath. And now you're back, my love. You made me wait so long. You were always so good at it when we were teenagers. Do what you did to me that night. You take away my breath, and I'll take away yours."

  She hiked down her panties, making a show of it, then flinging them across the room. Lola sat on his face, snuffing him. All he could smell was her sex. All he could hear was her moaning and whinnying as she grinding her crotch into his mouth and nose. He called out, trying to scream, to call out for help, but nothing could save him.

  He was going to be snuffed to death.

  Just like William had suffered the night of his death.

  The last thing he heard was Lola's cutting orgasm, "Ohhhhhh, you're going to make me scream!"

  Carter was dead long before she was finished with him.

  Not that she noticed.

  You Have Survived Storks