by Wendy Reakes
"You just worry about getting us some medicine," Bill said.
Dolly turned to look towards the chemist, where the green cross light had been smashed. "It's closed," she said.
Standing next to them, Harry looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. He went to the back of the truck and took a crowbar from Bill's bag of tools. Then he went to the chemist and prized the lock. The door swung open, and Bill and Dolly followed Harry inside. The shop was relatively untouched, except for some panic purchases made by some fleeing customers. The dispensary was boarded, so Harry broke the lock on that too and slid it up. He catapulted over the counter to look for medication to ward off infection. Dolly remained in the shop to search for useful items, while Bill filled a rucksack with bandages and antiseptic of all sorts: bandages, normal sticky plasters, scissors, arm slings, anything he could find.
Before they left, he saw Dolly dig into her pocket. She pulled out twenty-pounds and left it next to the till. Then she scribed a note. Dear Mr. & Mrs. Merritt, we owe you around-about £50. I only have this on me, so we’ll come in to pay the rest when we get back from Portishead. Sincerely, Dolly Hock.
Then they heard Gladys calling.
They rushed outside.
Far above, thousands upon thousands of seabirds, flocked together in a dense chevron formation pointing one way.
“They’re heading north,” Bill said.
Chapter 37
Ellen couldn’t get her car out of its parking space since it was blocked by many other abandoned vehicles. She’d have to walk home. She estimated it would take her about an hour, going uphill and allowing for delays along the way. She asked Anne and Alice to go with her, but they preferred to make their own way home. ‘My parents will be worried,” Anne said. ‘Mine too,’ said the other.
Ellen watched them walk east to their parents' homes somewhere in Bristol. She prayed they'd be alright and get home safely. At least they had each other. Ellen had no one to support her. Where the hell was Harry when she needed him? Before she started walking she tried her mobile. No signal. And she only had twenty per cent of charge left. She decided to switch it off and preserve the battery. She just hoped the kids weren't trying to call her. She'd check every fifteen minutes or so.
As she tucked the phone in her pocket, she stopped and pondered her chain of thought. How odd that she was thinking along the same lines as when things were normal. Were the kids trying to contact her? It’ll take about an hour to get home, blah, blah, blah. But, wasn’t she surrounded by dead bodies? Hadn’t she been locked in a cellar all night? Wasn’t she trying to stay alive? Was she going completely mad?
She took a deep breath and grabbed a tool from the back of the car. It was just a wheel brace, but it may be handy as a weapon against the birds if they attacked.
The man who had held her hostage in the cellar, Mark Shark, was walking around aimlessly, not knowing what to do or where to go, staring at all the bodies lying about all over the place, dead birds, broken tiles from the roofs; smashed windows in the houses; glass scattered everywhere…a total mind fuck, Ellen called it.
She stepped over a body to reach him. “Are you all right?”
He nodded, then he shook his head. “No, I don’t think I am.” He was on the verge of laughing, a hysterical laugh, crazy, much like the scream Ellen had let out only moments before. A scream to curdle anyone’s blood. “Is this real?”
“I’m afraid it is,” she answered with compassion. Compassion for the man who’d kept her locked in the cellar all night. She must have been losing her mind. “Where is your family? Do you live nearby?”
He shook his head. Almost looking like a lost little boy, which was odd for such a big man. “I don’t. I live in Manchester. I was down here working when it all started. I only came in for a quick lunch before driving home.”
“My house is at the top of the hill. Come with me,” she urged. Now, she really had lost her mind. “The phones may be working, and you can call home.”
He looked upwards to where she was pointing. “How far up?”
“It’s quite a climb.”
Their conversation was abruptly halted when screams rang out as more people exited their homes on the far side of the road. They were walking among the dead, sobbing, shouting, trying to make sense of it all. Ellen and Mark watched them offload their pain and devastation. One woman recognized one of the bodies. She screamed and fell to the ground when she saw his face. Another picked up a child and held her in his arms, rocking her as he looked to the sky for answers.
Ellen couldn’t watch anymore. She turned to leave as a sob caught in her throat.
Mark said, “I’ll come with you.”
The trek was long and arduous. The hill was renowned for being steep. Only the bravest and the fittest went up it on foot. Behind Ellen, Mark Shark was puffing and panting, as his heavy legs struggled to carry him up the steep gradient of the hill. He was a big man, tall, unfit, with a bit of a gut, wearing a white shirt over a pair of suit pants. His tie had long ago been abandoned.
Ellen stopped and looked back. “Are you okay?”
He hung his head as his breath expired fast and loud. “I don’t think I’ll make it.”
She was sympathetic since she was finding it equally hard. Having no sleep last night had made her weak, and he probably felt that too.
It wasn’t a straight walk. They had to dodge abandoned cars on the way, and the sights they saw were cruel to the eyes. Seeing people sprawled next to their cars with their eyes pecked out wasn’t normal. Seeing the children was worse. They were young, some were babies and toddlers, as their parents had failed to protect them.
All of it had happened last night when Mark Shark had prevented her from leaving the cellar. She would have left if he hadn't stopped her. Maybe that would have been suicide. She should thank him, but her pride wouldn't let her. She couldn't let Mark Shark know that he was the one who'd been responsible for keeping her alive.
Chapter 38
It happened just after midnight.
Matt had just got rid of the birds from the sitting room. He’d opened the sliding windows and threw a broom among the flock, making them surge to the sky in a rush of wings. And good riddance, he’d cursed as he announced the all-clear to the rest of the guys in the kitchen.
Everyone had cheered, as Matt, hailed the hero, held the broom aloft as if he'd single-handedly won the World Cup. He was proud to have saved his sister and proud to have saved his friends. When they go back to college on Monday, everyone would know he was ‘the man'. And in Coco's eyes, his would be the name she scribbled on her school books, Coco Fear. He knew girls did that.
Yes, Matt was proud of his amazing ability to react well in a crisis; namely, the arrival of some stupid crazy birds in his own front room. He didn’t know what his mum was going to say when she got back. The house was in a hell of a mess. Besides, where was she? She said she’d be home by midnight.
Out on the terrace, after the birds had long gone, Matt had stood with the broom held above his head as everyone cheered and whooped and called his name. Then they all stopped, turning to look through the open terrace doors, to the sitting room and the other side of the house where Sim’s dad had stumbled his way through the front door.
“Simon?” he called as he rushed through the lounge area, his eyes darting everywhere, taking in the evidence of the bird’s visit.
“Dad?” Sim called back, like an excited child.
His dad hugged him as if he was a little boy again.
Matt smiled as he watched, wishing his own dad was there right then. But what was all the fuss about? They didn’t know about the birds entering their home yet, so why was Sim’s dad acting like he hadn’t expected to find his son alive?
They all stood out on the terrace.
Sim’s dad was explaining how the birds had attacked everyone across the city and how he had made his way across Bristol to collect Simon, to take him back home. He was euphoric, celebrating the joy o
f finding his boy alive. Relief showed all over his face as he kissed the top of Sim’s head. It made Matt think about Harry, wondering if he would care as much about him, as Sim’s dad cared about Simon.
Just then, as they all hung out, patting one another on the backs, at that single emotional moment, terror entered Matt’s life and the lives of everyone on that terrace, when out of the thinning mist of the morning, the savage birds returned.
They descended in their hundreds as if they were hell-bent on revenge, as if their mission was to take back the place they had once called home. They lunged with their sharpened claws, hovering with their fluttering wings to steady themselves for the kill.
Without pondering the matter, Matt grabbed the three screaming girls and pushed them into the kitchen, leaving the guys to fend for themselves. He closed the door before they all fell to the floor in breathless hysteria. Quickly getting back on his feet, unable to see anything amid the chaos of black wings and white mist, Matt pounded the glass whilst the evil birds crowded the terrace.
Then as if the veil of birds had deliberately parted to offer him a better view, he watched as Sim and his father thrashed about on the floor, as they were covered head to toe in deadly crows, black as the night.
Their limbs worked as they attempted to recover, to protect themselves through the torment of the attack, but their struggles became worthless. There were just too many birds.
Matt was desperate to go out and help, but the girls held him back, screaming and shouting as if the sound of the birds killing frenzy wasn't enough.
Covered in a blanket of black feathers, Sim stopped moving while the birds carried on feasting upon him and his father, like a pack of lions enjoying their kill.
Matt knew they were dead, just by their lack of movement. No more thrashing, no more struggling, no more striking at the birds. He looked away with his mouth agape as he spat saliva from his wet lips and spilled his guts on the kitchen floor.
As he retched, and when the girls could no longer look, he saw another figure dressed from head to toe in evil plume.
Franco was leaning back against the glass barrier that wrapped itself around the terrace. The weight of the birds was testing him to the limit. His eyes showed through the mass and they seemed to stare at Matt in morbid acceptance and surrender. The creatures forced him backwards, and he tilted like he was top heavy.
Two birds took his eyes in two swift pecks, remaining on his shoulders as they gladly feasted on them, tossing them within the sharp tips of their beaks, and swallowing them whole.
While Franco screamed and begged for them to finish, to let him die in peace, he finally gave up as the weight of them made him topple across the balustrade, falling with the birds still on him, screaming in excruciating pain as he went down into the depths of the gorge, to the rocks below.
Now, Sim’s body was lying on the kitchen floor, alongside his father’s. They were covered with a white sheet taken from the airing cupboard. Matt sat nearby with his head in his hands, mourning the loss of his two best friends.
And Franco. The pain he must have suffered! Now he was gone. Not only in death but his body too, gone.
Now Matt had just two bodies lying on the floor, not three.
Chapter 39
They drove through country lanes, as if nothing was wrong; nothing different from the times they had taken a drive, just to get away from their normal routine on the farm. Sunday afternoons, usually. So far, the roads were clear, but Bill knew at any moment, they could come upon a blockade of mangled vehicles, to stop them going any further to reach the motorway that would take them north. Each mile they took without a detour was a bonus as far as Bill was concerned.
They passed roadside cafes, the windows smashed, where bodies inside made it appear as if they were crowded with diners. They weren’t. They were crowded with the dead.
The car parks were still full of cars, which would no longer be moved by their owners. Tourists, probably. Each time they passed a pub or roadside café, Bill wondered how long they had been there. He put in his head a future image of dust-laden vehicles, rusting, with their doors hanging off, and inside the cafés; tables with rotten food, with mice running over them, and decaying corpses sitting around the tables with forks still in hand. Then he thought, no, that wouldn’t be right. The people would have fought. This wasn’t the aftermath of a nuclear bomb. This was a vicious, vengeful attack of creatures they once believed to be their friends. No, the corpses wouldn’t be just sitting there, fork in hand, they would have taken those forks and fought back, using every last stab to stay alive, to protect themselves from certain death.
His thoughts were interrupted, and he was glad of it. The image in his head was way too real.
“Dad, I need the toilet.”
Bill felt a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll have to pull over,” Dolly said.
His heart sunk.
“I’m not going at the side of the road, dad,” said Lucy. “Find a toilet.”
He looked in the rear-view mirror and pondered the simplicity of her outlook. She’d started the journey with a look of terror on her face, and yet, now, her mindset was the same as it had been in the past, childlike innocence, demanding, oblivious of time or peril.
By experience, Bill knew that the matter had to be dealt with, and that for however long he prolonged it, or ignored her request, he was simply delaying the inevitable.
Up ahead he saw a large yellow M lighting the way.
Toby hoorayed. “McDonalds!”
Bill closed his eyes and shook his head. He wanted to lean his forehead on the steering wheel and bang it. The situation was laughable, except there was no amusement in his tortured mind. His children, in their naivety, were expecting a drive-thru, to be served Happy Meals. They had not yet fully understood the seriousness of their situation, the danger they were facing, being out in the open like that.
He turned the wheel, and pulled over, keeping the truck facing a hedge, with no view to please them. He recalled a time he’d left his family in the car, whilst he’d ran into a garage to arrange a MOT. When he came out, Dolly had moaned, saying that next time he could perhaps park in a way that would give them some interest while they waited. He’d looked at the wall in front, whilst behind was a view of the sea, and he got it. Thereafter, he always tried to give Dolly a view while she waited.
Not today.
Today he wanted them blind, unseeing of the destruction the birds had made over their favorite family restaurant.
He turned around in his seat. “I’ll take them.”
“I’d like the toilet too,” said his mother, as naïve as her grandchildren.
Harry looked at Bill rubbing his tired eyes. “I feel your pain,” he said.
Bill shrugged. What else could he do?
He decided, that if they were to continue their journey, travelling through busier places, perhaps it was time for them to confront reality, instead of him protecting them from those nightmarish visions. So, he said they should all go.
Bill drove the truck to the entrance of the restaurant, as close to it as he could get. Bill went in front, while Harry followed on behind, as the rest of their family walked in-between, protected as much as possible by the men.
They left the dog in the car. Lucy took the cat.
Inside was a glass foyer, and to the left were the toilets. Bill told the children and the women not to look at the carnage inside the restaurant. But they couldn’t help themselves. What they saw wasn’t just smashed windows and broken plates. It was an abattoir filled with rotting, bloodied meat.
The group stood with their mouths open when they saw the damage the birds had caused. Melanie had an alarming reaction. She moaned pitifully as her knees buckled, as if the scene inside the restaurant was more than her complex mind could tolerate. The children cried and buried their faces in Dolly’s overcoat, unable to deal with the reality that Bill thought they needed. What child needed that? Bill thought.
Then he
heard Dolly shout out. “Bill...look.”
He turned quickly and followed her gaze through the broken windows, to the sky.
Up there, a black cloud was looming, the chevron formation pointing right at them.
Chapter 40
“Not far,” Ellen called behind her. Truthfully, she wished she hadn’t asked him to come along. He was slowing her down, making it harder to get up a good stride. And as long as he slowed her down, he was keeping her away from her children.
She was about to say that she would go on ahead, implying he was less important than her family, but then she remembered his duty of care to the people in the cellar. He had remained steadfast when she wanted out. If he hadn’t, she would probably be dead now.
She turned about and looked to the bottom of the hill they’d just climbed. Trees lined the side overlooking the gorge while on her left were rows of expensive houses, affording a spectacular view.
Then she gasped. Over telegraph poles and the electrical cables running between them, over every tree, every pole, fence and stone wall, were all manner of birds, mostly terrifying, vicious-looking black crows.
Ellen wanted to drop to her knees. How long had she been walking as they watched her? Why hadn’t she seen them or heard them? What had she been thinking? Mark was walking up the hill towards her, watching his feet as he climbed. Then Ellen realised she had also watched her feet when the birds had landed their ominous, threatening bodies upon every surface. Goddamn it. They knew that if they’d been up front she would have seen them long before now. Oh god! Ellen thought. Without knowing it, she’d just walked the green mile.
She looked down at the wheel brace in her hand, taken from the car to protect herself. She stared at the bluntness of it, the silver shine of it, the ineffectiveness of it, how useless it would be. She placed it carefully on the concrete road, leaving both her hands free for when they took her.
