Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies

by Martin H. Greenberg

  Since I had to get up anyway, I grabbed the phone and carried the handset back to the den. Number six on my speed dial connected me with Elliot’s house.

  “Ginny!” I said when Elliot’s wife picked up on the first ring. “Have you seen the super squirrel?”

  “Oh, my, yes, Penny. He ate an entire ear of corn yesterday, just after dawn, before the crows landed.”

  “What kind of squirrel is he?”

  “I looked him up in the books, and he must be a cross between our Dougies and a California gray. Gray big gers we called them as kids,” Ginny said.

  I pictured her settling into her love seat with footrests. She didn’t have much else to do other than watch the wildlife surrounding us. MS left her weak and depressed most of the time. We chatted at least once a day.

  “I thought I heard rumors of a gray bigger finding its way up here last year. I’m surprised it could cross breed with the Dougies,” I mused.

  “Oh, you know rodents. They’ll breed any way they can.”

  The squirrel sat up on its haunches and scanned the deck. A crow had dared hop onto the railing.

  I said a nasty word as I examined the engorged nipples on her swollen belly.

  “What’s the matter, dear?” Ginny asked, quite concerned.

  “The squirrel is female and preggers.”

  “Oh, dear. I fear that one gray has started a bigger problem.” She laughed at her pun. “Should we call Fish and Wildlife?”

  “I’m not sure,” I hedged. “This gal is bigger than any squirrel I’ve ever seen, even a gray bigger.”

  Ginny dismissed my misgivings. “You’ve seen some of those wolf/dog hybrids. The pups can grow larger than either parent. That’s all it is.”

  I only half believed her.

  Visions of teenage mutant ninja something-or-others danced through my head.

  “Do you remember the rumors of a toxic waste dump in the wetlands off Salmon River Road? Some kids found abandoned barrels that were leaking.”

  “Oh, that was three years ago. And the barrels contained nothing more toxic than the dregs of diesel fuel. Elliot checked it out.”

  But he didn’t report them to the authorities and have the dregs tested.

  “Just because the barrels were labeled diesel doesn’t mean they contained diesel. The barrels are still there. Still leaking, and this squirrel is as big as a toxic waste dump mutant.”

  The squirrel charged the deck railing. The crow fled in an awkward clash of wings and loud squawks. His cronies lined up on Elliot’s fence and protested mightily. Deafeningly.

  If Big Mama out there could discourage the crows . . .

  Big Mama went back to stuffing herself with sunflower seeds. I named her Cass.

  The crows attacked the kitchen skylight. It sounded like machine guns or a jackhammer. A herd of elephants would be quieter tromping across my roof as they changed places in a unique dance.

  End of work for the day. No way could I concentrate with that racket.

  Time for a walk. Dyflyn had other ideas.

  She watched me from the top of the recliner back with one eye open. The rest of her seemed ready to nap. I donned the usual assortment of wool socks, boots, cap, scarf, and coat over my wool sweater and jeans.

  The second I opened the front door two inches, Dyflyn scooted through.

  I dove to grab her, slipped on the ice, missed the railing, and came up with a fist full of loose fur and a face full of slushy snow.

  “I’m gonna get you for that, Dyflyn. You’re supposed to be an indoor cat!” I yelled after her.

  She twitched her tail at me saucily.

  Okay, end the walk idea. I couldn’t leave with the cat out. We have coyotes who eat cats. Though I pity the coyote who might tangle with Dyflyn. So, I dug out the last set of outdoor lights and strung them around a rhododendron conveniently near the house and the multioutlet strip.

  I was standing in the middle of the street trying to decide if the extra layer of white was overkill to the display when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a distressed cat with super squirrel on her tail.

  Dyflyn dashed up the western red cedar at the center of the yard. Great. Now I’d have to get the extension ladder out and try to persuade her down.

  The squirrel raced up the tree in pursuit.

  I bit my lip in trepidation. The cat and the squirrel were almost the same size. Which one would I end up transporting to the vet?

  Three seconds later, the squirrel headed back down the tree with Dyflyn hot on her tail. They ran around the base of the tree, up the rhodie, made a jump to the carport roof, reversed, leaped over to the cedar, clung for several precarious moments while I watched with my heart in my throat, then continued the game up and down and around, over, under, around again. They threaded through the deck railing posts like a dog agility course. They climbed and scooted, blurs of liquid fur.

  An audience of neighbors gathered in the street. We cheered on the competitors in this strange contest and commented on the bizarre parentage of the squirrel.

  Eventually they paused in heart-racing truce, each perched on a different granite boulder. They stared at each other for several long moments.

  I crept over to Dyflyn, hoping to catch her while she rested. I’d get scratched. That was better than losing her to a rabid squirrel bite.

  I was almost upon her when she sat up, ears cocked in alarm.

  I stopped short, afraid she’d spotted me and prepared to run again. But all of her attention was on the squirrel. Cass ended the staring contest, turned, and hopped to the next boulder down in the terracing. This rock had a mesh of multicolored lights spread across it. Idly, she began chewing the twisted green wires.

  Dyflyn chattered and yowled. Even she knew better than to chew light cords, especially when the lights were lit.

  “No! Get away.” I started toward the squirrel, waving my arms.

  Cass began to twitch. Blue energy arced and crackled along her fur.

  I dove for the power strip, slamming the off switch with my fist.

  Too late. The super squirrel gave one final convulsion, legs stiff, brindled fur standing on end, smoke leaking out of the engorged teats, and keeled over. She landed in a soft nest of orange cedar tailings, only a shade darker than her tummy.

  We stood there in stunned silence. My heart stuttered for a beat or six.

  Linda, the neighbor across the street, ran for her house crying.

  “It’s a goner and good riddance,” Elliot grumbled. “Worse than the crows, eating more’n its fair share of corn.” He turned and stomped through his back door.

  We didn’t have a crow problem until he started putting out the corn.

  The party broke up, and I was left alone with my cat to catch. And a dead squirrel.

  I sighed to disguise the quivering of my chin.

  Dyflyn ceased chattering and stared at the dead animal. She sat immobile. Unbelieving?

  I grabbed the chance and scooped her up in my arms. She twisted wildly. I clung tighter, afraid she’d dash off again. We compromised with her head on my shoulder, staring back at the squirrel.

  The soft flutter of her heart near my ear reassured me that she lived. Her silky fur comforted me.

  Once inside, I threw Dyflyn onto my bed and closed the door. With her safe inside, I scrounged around the spare bedroom closet and found an empty shoe box I’d been meaning to recycle and hadn’t gotten around to yet.

  The ground was frozen. Not a good time to try digging a grave. I should have just carted the carcass off into the woods and left it for the crows. Strangely, they kept their distance as I used a shovel to deposit the dead squirrel into the box. Then I clapped the lid on it and stuffed it into the shed. Somehow in the last hour I’d developed an odd bond with Cass. She deserved better than to be left as carrion for those nasty crows.

  “Who said life in the mountains would be quiet so I could get more work done?” I shook my head as I settled with the laptop in front o
f the gas-log fire. Dyflyn liked stretching out in front of the heat. I think I turned it on to soothe her after her adventure more than to warm my icy feet.

  I opened a spreadsheet and began plugging in numbers.

  Dyflyn prowled around the love seat, under the foot-rest, across the hearth, under the Christmas tree. She banged her head against a bell on the lower branches and jumped backward four feet. She gave me the “I meant to do that,” look and levitated to the windowsill. And there she sat for over an hour staring out at the strangely quiet winter afternoon.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d say Dyflyn was mourning a dear friend. She’d only known Cass for ten minutes.

  I felt a bit mournful myself.

  A snow flurry swirled, blocking our view of the street. Or were those tears in my eyes?

  In my neck of the woods we say, “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute. If you don’t like the forecast, change the channel.”

  A warm south wind blew up about midnight bringing bucket loads of rain. At some point I heard the shed door bang open. Not unusual with gusts this strong, so I went back to sleep with a promise to get the local handyman to realign the door. Like I’d been promising myself for the past three years.

  Dyflyn woke up at the noise and began prowling again, peering out the window and chittering softly to herself.

  The freezing level shot up to pass level. By morning the last of the snow had melted. The ground thawed enough that I figured I could give Cass a decent burial after breakfast.

  “I don’t need your help,Dyflyn,”I told her.She crouched by the door while I donned my usual layers of outdoor gear. So intent was she on getting out, she completely ignored the crows trying to drill holes in the skylight.

  “Time for a preemptive strike,” I said as I grabbed her and tossed her into the bedroom. Just barely, I managed to close that door before she scooted out again. She pawed at the frame and dug under the door, mewing pitifully.

  “Sorry,” I lied as I exited the house. When I peeked over my shoulder I saw her sitting in the bedroom window glaring daggers at me. I wondered if she’d accept the bribe of a can of gourmet cat food.

  Probably not.

  The shed door swung back and forth in the remains of the wind. I grabbed the shovel first, then looked down at the spot where I’d stashed the shoe box coffin.

  The lid lay in tatters beside the box. The box was empty.

  My heart sank. Some beast, probably a coyote, had taken advantage of the loose door and seized Cass’s dead body.

  I sighed as I replaced the shovel and dumped the box in the garbage can. Somewhere deep inside me, I said a small prayer for the squirrel. She deserved better. But this was nature’s way. I should just let it go.

  Sadness made my steps heavy and slow as I retreated indoors and went about my morning chores.

  I hung the bird feeder and replenished the seeds in the screen tray before settling in for a morning of work in the office. The phone rang.

  Great, another excuse to put off actually working.

  “I thought the squirrel died,” Ginny said without preamble.

  “It did.”

  “Then what is gnawing the corn cob like an old-fashioned typewriter?”

  Carrying the phone, I dashed to the window that overlooked Elliot’s parade of feeding stations. At the end closest to my bedroom, he’d stuck a corn cob on a spike in the middle of a small ledge. Sure enough, a huge squirrel the size of a small dog, with the rusty coloring of a much smaller cousin, methodically worked her way up and down the cob, removing the kernels one by one, row by row.

  “Huh?”

  “It must be another one from the same litter,” Ginny muttered.

  “Would two sister squirrels both be pregnant out of season at the same time?” I asked. Cass had risen up to catch the tip of the cob, exposing her swollen belly. She looked even bigger, all over her body, not just in her belly, than she did yesterday.

  “Penny, are you sure she was dead, not just knocked out?”

  “I didn’t feel for a pulse,” I snapped.

  I tried to picture the shoe box. The lid had been shredded in long gashes from very sharp parallel claws. The box with its bit of tissue paper had remained undisturbed. A coyote would have left tooth marks in the cardboard. Could Cass have torn through the lid to escape?

  Dyflyn joined me at the window, pacing back and forth along the sill, meowing. At every third pass, she’d rise up on her hind legs and paw at the glass.

  The ubiquitous crows shifted. First one, then five, then fifty, lining the gutters of my house and Elliot’s. They rocked side to side from foot to foot. At first they moved randomly, then gradually fell into a unison dance. Back and forth in a hypnotic and silent ritual.

  Dyflyn crouched down, ears flat, front paws edging forward silently.

  I’d had enough. Time to take back my neighborhood from this avian invasion.

  Grabbing a coat as I ran, I dashed out the front door, heedless if it closed tightly. For the first time in my life I wished I possessed a firearm. Preferably a shotgun loaded with bird shot, or rock salt, anything to get rid of the black menace lining the roof trees and gutters.

  Cass nodded to me and resumed her work on the corn cob.

  I looked up, assessing what I had to do to convince the crows to move away, about three hundred miles away.

  Just then the crow on the near end of my gutter swooped and jabbed its beak at Cass’s head. Then it landed in one smooth glide at the end of the line across the way. The lead crow on that side took its turn, repeating the motion. This time it came up with a tiny tuft of squirrel fur in its beak. It landed with a triumphant caw that echoed between the houses.

  Elliot appeared on his steps inside the carport with two pot lids in his hands. He banged them together in a shrill clash.

  The crows ignored him.

  I headed for the garden hose neatly coiled inside the shed. By the time I’d attached it to the spigot, Dyflyn had escaped the house and climbed the four by four that held up the feeding station next to Cass and the corn.

  The next crow in the queue lost a tail feather to Dyflyn’s claws. She snarled in disgust that she hadn’t drawn blood.

  Cass finished with the corn and took notice of the flurry around her. As the next crow dive-bombed toward her, she ducked and rolled into a tight ball.

  The crow missed and noisily protested his disappointment at no fur trophy.

  I aimed a spray of cold water toward the roof line. A crow rose straight up and down again. It croaked curses at me that made my hair stand on end. I kept up my watery barrage, forcing the line of crows away from the gutter’s edge.

  Dyflyn caught the edge of the cascade. She hissed and spat, rightly blaming the birds as the cause of her getting wet. But she didn’t leave her post.

  Amazing.

  Then Cass uncoiled from her hedgehog roll. As she unfurled, she grew bigger and bigger yet.

  My aim with the hose faltered, drenching the ground rather than the enemy.

  Blue energy sparked from the end of each hair on Cass’s pelt. More than just puffing up with air to intimidate a rival. More than flexing her muscles. Her eyes glowed with the same blue electricity. Her fur bristled and took on darker, more metallic hues. She bared her teeth, and they elongated. Her claws grew almost as long as her stretching arms.

  Blue flame shot from each knife-sharp talon.

  The four-by-four post vibrated with the strength of her transformation. I felt the tingles of those sharp flashes all the way through my feet to my knees. My hands shook. I dropped the hose and wrapped my arms around myself to ward off atavistic awe.

  Cass’s fur stiffened, flattened, forming overlapping panels of plate armor. She became the Incredible Hulk of all squirrels.

  My heart skittered, and I knew fear.

  Elliot stared at her gape-jawed, forgetting to bang his pot lids.

  Down the post of the feeding station Cass flew, up the woodpile stacked neatly at the sid
e of Elliot’s house. Then she leaped to the roof with Dyflyn hard on her heels.

  They slashed and tore, snarled and hissed. Crow after crow hit the ground, disemboweled, wings broken, heads smashed. If Cass left one living, Dyflyn finished it off. And they moved on, to the next and the next.

  Five died before I remembered to breathe.

  Ten met their grisly fate before the crows got the idea this was no longer a safe place for them. The flapping of wings sounded like a single clap of thunder as they rose. With telepathic precision they circled and wheeled. One foolhardy hero made one more attempt to land beside the empty corn cob.

  In a magnificent leap, the armored squirrel soared from the roof to the ledge, gouging beady black crow eyes as it landed. This bird fell too, pierced to the brain.

  As one, the flock turned in the air and streaked west toward the valley and more hospitable climes.

  They’d have to begin their world domination elsewhere.

  Cass descended from her perch with dignity and scampered off into the woods.

  Dyflyn came down more awkwardly. Still, she was full of herself and stropped my ankles until I praised and petted her with due admiration.

  “Gonna freeze tonight,” Elliot said around a toothpick. “Might as well leave the buggers. Easier to handle when they’re stiff. I’ll bag ’em and put ’em in the garbage first thing in the morning before the truck comes.” He retreated with his pot lids.

  By the time I’d put the hose away and gone inside, Dyflyn had settled in front of the fireplace. The look she gave me clearly said that I needed to turn on the gas log so she could dry off and warm up properly. I obeyed.

  I also put out extra seeds on the back deck tray.

  I never saw Cass again, though the sunflower seeds disappeared at an alarming rate all winter long.

  By spring the crows hadn’t come back.

  But if they do, there’s an entire litter of oversized squirrels ready to take them on. Dyflyn trains them regularly with games of follow my leader and catch me if you can.

  I don’t think I’ll put out holiday lights again though.

  This story is dedicated to

  Lilac

  My own dyflyn of a Siamese