Bird of Prey: A Horror Novella

by Griffin Hayes

  Maybe it was over the car.

  And then he spotted it over Keisel’s, little more than a grayish form. It swooped down and landed on the roof by one of the smoke stacks and ambled into a hole and out of sight.

  Like a fucking bird heading back to its nest, Buck thought to himself.

  Tommy angled his wounded shoulder out of his checkered shirt and surveyed the damage. There were two puncture holes the size of silver dollars. One beside his pectoral muscle and the other behind his shoulder blade. Buck wrapped his torn shirt over the wound and under Tommy’s arm and then tied a sailors knot to keep it from coming undone.

  “There’s no way in Sam Hill that was the one you killed, Buck, no fucking way.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Buck snapped, fighting to examine his handiwork in the bucking car. “Compared to that bitch, what I got seemed more like… a baby.”

  Tommy shot him a wide-eyed glance.

  What Buck said next came out more smoothly than he had meant it to. “I think we just met Mama.”

  The implication took a moment to sink in.

  “So there could be dozens of those things flying around? What if they get someone else…?” Buck looked away. “What? What is it Buck? What is it that you know?”

  “Fast Eddy Fick. At least what was left of him, half sticking out of the bushes.”

  “Oh Christ! We gotta call the sheriff.”

  “And tell him a giant bird ate Fast Eddy’s face off and then took you for a joy ride? Come on, Tommy! By the time those chowder heads get their act together, who knows how many others are—”

  “Then what? We can’t just pretend none of this happened.” There was a touch of desperation in Tommy’s voice. “You said yourself that when mother nature goofs-”

  “I know what I said,” Buck cut in. His wound was still bleeding. “A five-legged deer, that’s a goof, no question. But that thing up there is no run of the mill goof; it’s a bloody monstrosity and it needs to be wiped off the face of the earth… before it gets hungry for something other than stringy old hermits.” He paused. “Before it moves into town.”

  Tommy looked pensive. A bead of sweat rolled down his face and onto his jeans, forming a dark blue dot. He looked over at Buck. “We’re gonna need some help. And guns, lots of guns.”

  Part III

  ‘The Beast’s Handiwork’

  What Tommy hadn’t counted on was the reaction they got from Tig and Allan; both regulars at Lonie’s who had arrived less than an hour after Buck had called them. Tommy had figured that once the snickers and cajoling were done with they might get down to the business of how best to kill the thing at Keisel’s. But there was no cajoling and nothing even remotely resembling a snicker. Tig Kowski and Allan Racine had fallen into a dead silence at the first mention of the birdman. The muscles in Tig’s narrow jaw had been clenched noticeably and when the lanky man swallowed, the Adam’s apple that poked out from his pencil thin neck had bobbed like a fishing pole.

  Allan’s reaction might have been the same, except that the pudginess Buck liked to call the man’s ‘baby fat’ had just made the folds of his neck quiver ever so slightly.

  Something about the uneasy expression on Tig’s face worried Tommy. It was more than the kind of fearful look one would expect; there was terror in the man’s eyes. Above all, there was recognition.

  “Tig…” Tommy began.

  But Tig never let him finish.

  “My great-granddaddy lived to be an old man,” Tig said. “Ninety-eight years old, nearly. Years ago he used to tell about something he had seen when he was just a kid. Said his ma had told him to go fetch the clothes off the drying line and that he’d gone out in the middle of a bright, sunny day and no sooner had he grabbed hold of his first bed sheet, than the sky had turned as black as night. Said he’d looked up thinking a big black cloud had come overhead and could barely believe his eyes when he’d seen thousands of birds—’dihnasores’ he called them—flying towards Drexel. He’d never seen anything like it again, he said, until WWII when all those planes took to the sky for D-Day.”

  “Where’s Drexel?” Tommy asked. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Course you haven’t,” Tig replied. “Drexel went from being one of the biggest Alaskan logging towns to little more than a vacant lot with busted out buildings. As if everyone had just picked up and ran away. Except no one ever left Drexel. Damned eeriest thing he’d ever seen, my grandfather said.”

  “I don’t understand,” Tommy said sounding exasperated. “What’s the point of wiping out a whole town?”

  Allan flicked the ash off his cigarette with one of his pudgy fingers. “You said this thing was part man and part moth?”

  Buck nodded. “We did.”

  “Any of yous ever heard of the Winter Moth?”

  No one said anything. Their collective expressions said they didn’t have patience for one of Allan’s stories.

  “A cousin of mine down in Massachusetts that told me bout it last year. I guess by its name you wouldn’t think much. Winter Moth. Giddy up, right? But when March comes rolling along and those larvae start hatching, hell, they’ve been known to strip entire neighborhoods of every leaf they ever had.”

  There was an audible click in Tig’s throat.

  “How long do you think we have?” Tommy asked.

  Allan took a final drag and then stubbed his cigarette out between yellowed fingers. “Hard to say. It may already be too late.”

  Buck’s face was nearly expressionless. A sort of morbid determination had come over him. Both his and Tommy’s wounds continued to bleed and for some inexplicable reason, a growing part of Tommy suspected that bleeding wouldn’t stop until the creature and its offspring were destroyed.

  Buck reached under the bar and produced a sawed-off shotgun. His initials were carved into the chestnut stalk: B.S.

  Tommy stood beside him, the handle of a gun poking out the front of his jeans. He removed it and laid it on the table. The gun was a Colt.45. Eight-shot clip—a respectable firearm with a large slow moving bullet capable of knocking a grown man off his feet. There was a look of surprise on Buck’s face as the gun came out. “I keep it strapped under the Bird’s front seat,” Tommy explained a little sheepishly. “You never know when you’re gonna need a little firepower.”

  Buck looked over at the two men. “Let’s see what you brought.”

  Tig and Allan nodded and each picked up the long black cases resting at their feet. To the casual observer it might have seemed the men were getting ready for a friendly game of eight ball. Tig laid his case on the edge of the oak table and undid the zipper. His hand disappeared inside and he came out with a Winchester 94. It looked like something from an old John Wayne western. That Tig and guns did not get along was especially obvious by the way he grasped the rifle by the barrel instead of the stalk. Tig wasn’t much for hunting either, but that was more because in Tig’s opinion, fiddling around with guns in the woods had a nasty habit of eating into the time he could spend drunk at Lonie’s. In truth, the gun was something of a gift from a distant uncle who happened to be a self-described gun nut. An uncle who had never liked Tig and was hell bent on sticking his ‘good for nothing’ nephew with something he would never have a use for.

  A look of triumph had spread steadily across Tig’s face as that gun had come out and Tommy suspected it had more to do with proving his uncle wrong than it did from the pleasure of handling such a fine weapon.

  “And the other stuff I asked you to bring?” Buck asked.

  Tig produced a large blue duffel bag from under his chair. He unzipped it. Inside were miner’s helmets. Tig reached in carefully and removed a shoebox tied with bungee cords. He opened the box and pulled out six sticks of dynamite lashed together with a timer.

  Tommy’s eyes went wide. “Gezuz, Buck, what’s the idea? We’re going to shoot the bloody things not blow the whole fucking metal works sky high.”

  “Oh really,” Buck shot back. “An
d what if there are more of those damn things than we have bullets for? What then?”

  Buck was right and Tommy knew it.

  “That place is gonna be crawling with those things and you and I both know it. We can’t afford to let a single one get out.”

  The three of them looked at Allan.

  Allan undid his case next.

  Tommy stifled a nervous laugh when he saw what the fat man came out with. A five-shot Springfield rifle from WWI. A bloody bolt-action. The expression on Allan’s face made it clear he could feel the mood in the room sour. “Guys, this was all I could get on such short notice,” he squealed defensively. “Ma almost wouldn’t let me have it. She was real crabby this morning. I had to promise her I’d re-shingle the roof.”

  The weathered features on Buck’s face hardened. “I’m not happy, Allan. Serious, reliable firepower was what I asked you to bring and you show up with an antique piece of shit. I’ll say it again, I ain’t happy. But we ain’t got the luxury of being angry right now. And we ain’t got time to run down to Jerry’s Gunmart and start shoppin’ around. If Tig’s story about Drexel is true and these things intend to swoop in and carry off everyone we know, then there ain’t any other choice but to blow them the fuck up.”

  Buck’s eyes dropped to the case in front of Allan. “Now. How many shells you got?”

  The color that rose in Allan’s face gave Tommy butterflies.

  “Thirty…” And as the words hit the air, Allan’s eyes fell. For a frantic moment they darted between a half empty pack of matches by an overflowing ashtray and a broken beer glass lying forgotten under the table. “Maybe twelve.”

  Buck’s mouth dropped open, as though he were about to unload a can and a half of verbal whoop ass, when the phone behind the bar began to ring. On the third ring, Buck’s mouth tightened into a grimace and he left to answer it.

  “Lonie’s,” he snapped and then paused briefly. “Speaking. What is it?”

  A strained expression fell over Buck’s face. All three men studied him intently. Then his expression shifted to something that resembled dread and then anger. He shook his head, mumbled something Tommy and the others couldn’t quite hear and hung up the phone.

  Tommy stepped forward “What is it?”

  “That was Bobby Miller.”

  Tig’s eyebrows went up. “Deputy Miller? What’d he want?”

  Buck’s hand reached for the wet rag by the sink and wrung it dry. “Said for over an hour now, he’s been flooded with all kinds of weird calls. Old couple on the edge of town said they seen something strange. Like a giant man with wings. Asked if I’d seen anything strange myself.”

  Buck’s eyes had glazed over. “If it wasn’t for me, none of this would be happening.”

  “You heard Tig’s story, Buck,” Tommy was saying. “It was just a matter of time before they came snoopin’ around. For all we know, Fast Eddy’d been dead for days.” He made his way to the bar, but Buck wasn’t buying a single word of it. The only thing worse than Buck’s short temper was his stubbornness.

  “Get your gear,” Buck barked. “We’re headin’ out.”

  Tommy stuffed the.45 into the seat of his pants. Tig and Allan shouldered their rifles and filled their pockets with what few bullets they had.

  The three of them waited in the car for Buck. When he finally reappeared, he was carrying the blue duffel bag.

  A thick layer of sweat and grease glistened on Allan’s forehead.

  “Pop the trunk, will ya?” Buck told Tommy.

  Tommy did as he said and Allan squeezed his head out the window. A stiff breeze came through the pines and flipped a tuff of thinning hair into his cherubic face. “Seriously Buck, let’s not go gettin’ ourselves blown up.”

  Buck turned to him. “Just stay close when the shit hits the fan, and you’ll be fine.” Buck slid into the car. “Let’s roll.”

  • • •

  They came upon the Plymouth Voyager with the Oregon plates about a mile from Keisel’s.

  Above the trees, the line of smoke stacks was clearly visible and whenever Tommy found himself glancing up at the empty sky above the place, the palms of his hands would fill with sweat. The late afternoon sun was low and in their eyes, turning the world the color of an overripe peach. He knew that the chances of seeing the thing hovering, waiting for them, were next to nil. But no matter how much sense it made, that kind of thinking didn’t make one bit of difference right about now.

  The real part the blinding sun had to play was that they hadn’t really got a good look at the minivan until they were almost up its ass. It was splayed across the road. The passenger side door was ajar. A leg with a white tennis shoe was peaking out. The normality of it made Tommy uneasy. But there was more. Even from here, they could see that the roof was torn open and peeled back like a can of sardines.

  In the back seat of the Firebird, Allan fumbled as he tried loading the five-shot clip into his Springfield. Three bullets tumbled from his hands and spilled to the ground, bouncing around his feet. He let out a billowing sigh; his breath was heavy and sour.

  Tommy opened his door and stepped out. His hand closed around the.45 tucked into his pants. He pulled back on the slide and the gun made a clicking sound. A red handprint was smeared down the driver’s side window. And suddenly, gun or no gun, all the moisture suddenly went out of Tommy’s mouth.

  Buck was also out of the Firebird and heading for the passenger door. Tig and Allan were in the rear, each with a leg in the Bird and one on the dirt road. Buck turned slowly and looked back at them. The index and second fingers of his right hand rose in a V to his eyes and then pointed upwards.

  They got the message and scanned the sky so the birdman wouldn’t catch them out in the open with their pants down. Not again at least.

  It didn’t take long for Tommy to discover there was little sense trying to peer into the tinted back windows. He sidled up next to the front door and when he got there, he saw the body laying face down against the steering wheel. He popped the driver’s side door open and the smell that spilled out reminded him of the butcher shop down on Easton Avenue. A stench strong enough you felt like you were chewing on a mouthful of rusty nails. Tommy pulled on the body of a man. It slumped into the seat with a wet slap. The guy’s scalp had been peeled open and rolled back—like the roof. And it was clear by the position of the woman’s body on the passenger side—her door open and a single foot poking out—that the paralyzing effects of fear had let go too late.

  In the back, Buck found a baby seat and a cheap imitation Barbie doll, all signs that children had once been back here, but not anymore.

  “She’s going after the kids,” Tommy said in mute horror.

  A stuffed dog stared back at them, blood smeared across its furry face.

  Flies had wondered in through the peeled roof and were buzzing happily around the gore that was once a man’s head.

  Buck did not reply right away.

  Tommy removed the hand that was covering his mouth. “Buck, he’s taken the kids! They may still be—”

  “The kids are dead,” Buck said matter of factly. And the words came out so coldly that it frightened Tommy. “My guess is it won’t be long before she’s back for these two either.”

  A kind of calmness had come over Buck, the way it does when a man decides he’s had enough of life. It was the guilt and perhaps the thought of the sky, thick with those things. Tommy knew it without a doubt. A belief had taken hold of Buck that in some way he had started this whole mess. That look was one Tommy had seen before and a chilling certainty came over him that these killings would end tonight. They would end or Buck would die trying.

  • • •

  They arrived at the steel works ten minutes later. An unnerving tranquility had settled over the area. Every wild creature within a square mile seemed to have disappeared. Almost every.

  Guns and blue duffel bag in hand, the four men followed the gravel path toward the main building—toward the hole in the
roof that Buck had seen that thing disappear into not two hours ago. Along the way they came to the spot where Buck had found Fast Eddy Fick, lying on the ground with his face all shredded. The gravel was disturbed where Buck had taken his spill, but as the two men had secretly feared, Eddie’s body was gone. What really made the color drain from Tommy’s face however was the way the blood had also vanished—every last drop of it. As though an army of bloodsuckers had scurried out to feast as soon as they had left. As soon as they had run for their lives, Tommy amended.

  There was a shadow overhead and Tommy glanced up fearfully. A single pink cumulous cloud was making lazy progress across the sky.

  Don’t let the nerves get to you!

  The sun was touching the horizon when they came to a large, rusted door. A sign there read, ‘Private property: All trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.’ Buck was the first to laugh, followed by Tommy, then Tig, then Allan. Buck tossed each of them a miner’s hat. Predictably, Tig’s made him look like a twelve-year-old. The nerves were raw for sure, because all four of them were bent over cackling for nearly a full minute. Laughter was the best damn therapy on earth, Tommy thought as he gathered himself, stepped forward and slammed the heel of his foot into the door. The door swung wide and the sound of weakened metal giving way echoed back at them from inside.

  Buck held the shotgun cradled over one arm. “It’s now or never gentlemen,” he said and vanished into a dusty patch of darkness.

  The dark narrow corridor opened onto an enormous factory floor. The size of it made Tommy think he’d been sucked into one of those dusty old photographs. Grand Central Station during the twenties, dotted with figures long dead, rushing off to nowhere.

  Streamers of vertical light bled in from above. A cathedral of steel and broken glass. The blast furnace and most of the billet casters were gone—sold or plundered over thirty years ago when Keisel’s was shut down. A few hulking remnants remained, standing guard in the murkiness like titans.

  They’re watching us, these machines, Tommy thought.