The Bitching Tree

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The Bitching Tree Page 24

by Scott Hungerford


  While the city was a human place like any other, filled with people and food and threats and delicious smells, this one was filled with more expensive people and more expensive buildings than he’d seen before. A forest of skyscrapers rose up all around him, most twenty or thirty stories tall. Parks and plazas were scattered all around the bases of the window-filled towers, providing lots of places for Cobb to hide while he stalked the lair of his enemy.

  After buying a bottle of expensive orange juice and a delicious piece of nutty, chocolaty bread from a little storefront near the bus station, he found a good watching place at the top of a low hill. From here, while he ate his snack, he could look out over the entire city toward the great water bridge. He knew roughly where the crows should come from; it was just a matter of discovering their final destination.

  Even as human jobs let out for the day and people in suits swarmed through the streets, he kept vigil, standing in the cold. Another half hour passed with no crows in sight, but he had no doubt they would be coming soon. Then he saw the flock leaders making their way over the trees a half mile away, clearly struggling against exhaustion with every wingbeat. They made their way through the city from right to left, flying in a cloud, dodging between buildings, screaming up a storm.

  But it wasn’t the tree-lined park near the reservoir, or the shiny shopping mall that they drove toward, but instead to a tower just a few blocks away from him. Standing alone, with no cranes parked next to it, the building spiraled up a good twenty stories, its tinted windows catching the last of the day’s light.

  To Cobb’s surprise, the crows didn’t land on top of the low walls surrounding the place, or in the scattering of red maple trees planted around the base. Instead, they struggled to fly up, to gain nearly twenty stories of altitude by circling the building in droves, desperately cawing and tawing to one another as they strove to reach the top. Those that did reach the roof quickly vanished out of Cobb’s view, even when he craned his neck. The weak ones, the stragglers that couldn’t make it, they settled down on the edge of the compound walls below, crying out piteously for their kin. Cobb knew from years of experience that being on the ground at night was a death sentence, as predators could easily pick off the old, the injured, and the weak. No crow worth its feathers would dare be so low to the ground when the sun went down.

  By the time the last crows arrived it was well after dark, but Cobb couldn’t see any lights shining from any of the tower’s lower windows, just a row at the very top. He couldn’t see any people or shapes through the tinted windows. But he could see the crows flapping around at the very top of the tower, showing typical jostling and roosting behavior. Sometimes they would cry out in a great tumult as if someone were tossing out food for them to fight over.

  Deciding that he had to get closer, Cobb made his way down into the city to where the tower dominated the landscape. Keeping to the shadows as best he could, trying to keep out of sight of the miserable-looking crows unable to fly to the top, he walked around the building, always staying across the street. With his heavy-coat disguise abandoned back near his apartment, he knew it was possible his second disguise might be recognized. But after walking slowly past the observers, none of them seemed to realize that he was a spy.

  During his surveillance, Cobb noted the front entrance with its bank of shiny glass windows and doors. He then saw the back entrance, where cars and trucks could drive through a big mechanical door into the heart of the building. Getting into the garden would be no problem, because when the crows were gone during the daytime, he could approach the building from a number of different directions. Then the benches and trees and rocks and artificial gurgling streams could provide cover in case he had to quickly hide.

  On one corner of the property, he found an interesting sign fastened to a couple of sticks. On the sign were strange maps and pictures of big yellow hats, as well as a bunch of words indicating that CONSTRUCTION was happening, that PERMITS had been handed out, and DEMOLITION was happening soon. This didn’t make a lot of sense to Cobb, but he got that the building would be knocked down to make way for a new one.

  But then he saw something that made him swallow hard. There were little black glass spheres stuck on the walls all around the building. His human self knew them as cameras that watched all, saw all, knew all. That meant that sneaking in was going to be impossible, and he would have to rethink how he was going to get inside.

  As Cobb walked around the building a second time, he noted something very important. There were no people. Even at this time of night when the streets of Bellevue had lots of people walking back and forth, coming and going from buildings, Cobb didn’t see a single person come or leave the stronghold for the entire hour he spent watching. That was interesting, as he figured he would have seen the Red Crow’s human minions come and go.

  He figured he could just walk up and open the doors, to go inside and see what was there. But Cobb would need to be ready for that, including having all the right weapons and tools at his disposal. Torvo was running out of time, but Cobb knew from his teacher’s lessons that he couldn’t rush it, had to do it right—because he would only have one shot before the hunter became the hunted.

  Eleven

  Cobb arrived home that night well after dark, but in very good spirits. After letting himself through the lobby door he went up to his place. But even as he held out his key, Cobb could feel that something inside was wrong, very wrong.

  Quietly opening the lock, he let the door swing open with a tap of his foot. The inside was dark, but he could smell what had changed. He flipped on the overhead light switch by the door—and what he saw made him inhale sharply.

  Crows had been inside. Hundreds of them. They had probably spent most of the day tearing apart everything in sight. The carpet was shredded and befouled by splats of speckled crow excrement. All of the lamps were tipped and smashed. Every surface was pecked and scratched. Dishes were smashed to the floor, the bathroom shower curtain ripped down. The pile of unpaid bills was scattered and torn to pieces. His precious collection of drawn art was also torn to bits, laying among his shredded bedsheets. His mattress, violated, was bleeding stuffing at every seam.

  In the kitchen a large dead crow lay on the floor, surrounded by pieces of broken glass. The windowpane itself, only half shattered, was marked by blood and feathers where the flock had come and gone through the razor-sharp edges.

  In the main room, Kory’s picture frame lay facedown, glass cracked—but the picture inside was untouched. Cobb let out a sigh of relief at this. He could always draw her again if he really thought about it. But he knew her picture was the most precious thing his human owned.

  His closed closets were untouched and the clothes in the bureau were fine. The crows had tried to get into his cash can from Alaska and tried to knock over the box with the gun. While those two things were fine, everything else in the apartment was a ruined loss.

  He did what he could. He pulled the last few garbage bags from the roll and stuffed in everything he had to, including the bedsheets, the blankets and the pillows. All the art pieces, the torn-apart paintbrushes, the shredded blinds, all of it had to go. Even the phone cord that connected the handset to the wall, that was gone too, the receiver left abandoned under the lip of the refrigerator with the buttons pecked out. He figured that he could sleep on the bed underneath a pile of clothes and—

  Then he just stopped.

  There was no fixing this.

  Here, the Red Crow had won.

  Changing his priorities, he tacked up some cardboard over the window. It would be enough to keep the wind and rain out, but he knew it wouldn’t keep the determined flock out for long. Then he packed his backpack with the things he would need in the days to come. Some clothes, the gun, his wallet, the cash can, Hawna’s letter and the picture of Kory. The broken handset from the kitchen, as a strange reminder of everything that he and Hawna had shared.

  Even as he packed, he shivered, imagining the whole m
urder in here before dusk, waiting silently for him to return, perched on every surface. How nothing would have saved him from that black tide if they launched themselves upon him. It was all because he got home so late; he felt lucky to be alive.

  After rinsing out the shower and the sink, he cleaned the bathroom of bird feces as best he could with a roll of paper towels. He then took a quick shower to prepare him for the long night to come. He shaved, brushed and made himself as normal-looking as possible before he packed all of his bathroom tools away in the backpack as well.

  Going back out into the living room amid a cloud of steam, Cobb shook his head at the carnage. Even as he got dressed in his disguises again, he knew that he would have to count his money to see what he had left, whether he could afford a motel room somewhere. Maybe he could buy a sleeping bag at the camping goods store? The idea of it made him very sad, but he didn’t know why.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  He heard it from outside his apartment, down the public hall. It was a very odd sound. It sounded like something metal tapping on glass, down at the front door of the building.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  He went to his apartment door, checked the hallway through the spy hole, and saw nobody there. Opening the door, he tiptoed down the creaky hallway, ignoring the sounds of television sets playing through his neighbor’s doors. He got right up to the edge of the staircase where he could look down into the foyer. Getting down on his hands and knees, moving as slowly as possible so whomever was at the door wouldn’t see him, he peeked around the corner.

  There were two men outside the door, one with white skin, one with black skin, both dressed in dark suits. Both men looked very tidy, though the white man had a mustache and the black one didn’t. The white man was in front, a heavy pistol in hand, and he was rapping on the glass with the butt end of it.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Cobb pulled back, hands shaking. He went to his apartment door, grabbed his backpack, turned off the lights, then closed and locked the door behind him. Moving quickly, he went down the back stairs to the door that led out to the alley. As he opened the door, he heard a single gunshot from the front of the building—followed by the sound of heavy plate glass crashing and smashing on the tile. Then there were running footsteps heading up the stairs toward his apartment, followed by all manner of yelling and shrieking and the opening and slamming of doors.

  After checking both ends of the alley for more gunmen, Cobb let himself out into the open, hoping that the gargoyle crows above, the ones so intent on his apartment, wouldn’t see him. He then turned and ran for safety, cutting through the cold Seattle night with all the speed his feet had to give.

  Panting, his back hurting from where the heavy backpack kept bumping against his side, he slowed down when he got into the large park a few blocks from his apartment. Here, there were no cars to be seen. He was pretty sure he hadn’t been followed by either man or beast.

  Making his way to the other end of the park, he went down the hill, cutting through streets that wove between slumbering houses. Taking a different route than he had before, he walked for an hour to get back to the wide drawbridge that led across the water. From there he cut further north, walking along a long road through the University District until he came to the address of the store where he might be able to buy bullets. But because it was still well before dawn, the store was closed. He had time to wait, so he paced back and forth and blew on his hands, and thought about his options. Despite the fact that he was tired, he knew that if he succumbed to sleep, predators could attack him while he was on the pavement, which would never do.

  At six o’clock the first workers showed up at the store, but they wouldn’t let him in. They said he had to wait until seven o’clock to make his purchases, just like the little sign on the door said. At one kind man’s advice, he went down to a diner a block away where he ordered eggs and coffee and toast and ate it all up, feeling better after he ate the warm food. As he finished up, he counted his money at the table so he knew exactly what he had to work with.

  But a sudden thought came to him. If he spent it all, how would he get back to Alaska when all this was done? How could he afford a ticket, when he couldn’t even call Hawna anymore? He shook his head and stuffed the wads of money back into the can. He would just have to figure all of that out later.

  At seven o’clock sharp he entered the store, the electronic bell on the door dinging loudly as he made his way inside. He admired how the place was filled with all manner of hunting jackets, camp stoves, tools, and even big tents just like Torvo’s.

  “Can I help you?” The woman behind the counter seemed friendly, which was a relief.

  “I’m looking to buy things,” Cobb told her as he took off his sunglasses, partly so he could see, and partly so she could see his eyes and trust him more. “Tools. Ammunition. Protection.”

  She raised an eyebrow at the last one, but didn’t run away, which pleased him. “What kind of things are you looking for?”

  “I need bullets,” he said, then pulled his pistol out of his backpack. “A lot of them. To fit—”

  “Put that away,” she said, panicked. “Don’t pull that out. People will think you’re robbing us.”

  “I’m not robbing you,” Cobb said bashfully, putting the heavy piece back in the backpack pocket where it belonged. “Sorry. I just don’t know where to buy bullets. So I can … practice.”

  “Well, I’ll show you to our sporting supplies section. Bart there can help you out, as we keep that kind of thing locked up behind the counter. Would that be alright?”

  Cobb nodded, agreeing that her solution would be perfectly fine. After following her through aisles packed with thousands of things for sale, he met Bart, the tallest and most muscled human he had ever seen.

  “I need to buy a box of bullets, please,” Cobb said respectfully.

  “What caliber? Any specific brand?”

  Cobb unzipped the pocket of his backpack and showed Bart the gun, but didn’t take it out.

  “That’s quite a piece you’ve got there.” But Bart didn’t move to find anything for him. Cobb’s eyes roamed the locked glass shelves behind him, wondering which box the bullets he needed came in.

  “Are you in trouble?” the young woman asked him, a look of concern and distrust on her face.

  Cobb tried to figure out a way to tell them what was going on, but decided to go for the simplest explanation. “Some … people broke into my house yesterday. They tore up everything I owned and shit all over the floor and my bed. They are coming for me and … I need bullets. I need protection.”

  Bart blinked and crossed his arms. “You’re serious?”

  Cobb nodded. “Very serious.” He patted the backpack. “This is all I have left in the world now. And this,” he said, pulling out the rusted coffee can from the interior, “is all the money I have left. After that I have nothing. Everything else is gone and there are people depending on me. Can you help me?”

  Bart nodded, his eyes showing that he believed Cobb’s story. “We can help you.”

  “Should we call the police?” the young woman asked, a little freaked out at Cobb’s story. But Bart just shook his head slowly, from side to side.

  “This is past that,” Bart told her, agreeing with Cobb. Taking out his keys, the man opened up one of the locked cabinets behind the counter and pulled out two boxes of bullets wrapped in plastic covers. “Nobody shits on the floor of my house. Nobody. Will there be anything else?”

  “A lot of things. But do you have pepper spray?” Cobb asked.

  “What kind would you like?” Bart replied with a smile, and reached to unlock a second cabinet.

  An hour later Cobb walked out of the store with a lot less money but feeling much better about his armament. He had two boxes of bullets, two cans of pepper spray, a good knife strapped to his belt and a couple of gas-filled hair-o-sol cans that made a huge honking noise when you pressed the button on top. On top of that he had one small
flashlight, a pair of fingerless gloves and a custom-length fresh-cut piece of heavy pipe called a whackety stick that felt good in his hand and slid neatly into his backpack.

  Next, Cobb went a little further up the road to the big box hardware store where he bought himself, with the aid of a slightly befuddled young man, a heavy chainsaw that was the exact same kind and color as Torvo’s, along with the necessary fluids and tools to maintain it. He also picked up eye goggles with a rubber strap, and heavy-duty duffel bag to carry the chainsaw around without drawing attention. Once he had completed his purchases he only had a handful of bills left in the can. Maybe enough for a couple more meals, but not much else.

  Out in the parking lot Cobb tore open the box containing the chainsaw and followed the picture instructions to assemble the last few pieces that had to be attached. When he was done, he slid on the plastic blade guard. Abandoning the cardboard box it came in, he lugged his new tool across the street. He was about to try to figure out how to fill it at one of the gasoline pumps when a man came out of the shop and started yelling at him.

  Within a few minutes Cobb had spent another bill to buy a red gasoline can he felt he didn’t need, which was required by the angry man that guarded the sacred gasoline boxes.

  Now, with the chainsaw filled and the red gasoline can abandoned along the side of the road, the duffel-bag-filled-with-chainsaw was very heavy—and the backpack of tools was heavier as well. Cobb was still going to have a hard time moving around. But he knew he was ready.

  Going back to the first store, he went in and asked the same young woman to call a cab for him. She did so without even blinking an eye, happy to help him out. A few minutes later a yellow taxi showed up and Cobb climbed in.

  “Where to, buddy?”

  “Bellevue,” Cobb replied. “Downtown, by the park.”

 

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