The Flock

by James Robert Smith

  Lashing out with his own great claws, he was able to force his attacker to back away. After that, he lowered his head and charged, meaning to get in close and bite at the other’s deep, fleshy chest. The muscles there were large and thick and vulnerable to attack. Jaws wide, he lunged in and came close, retreating with a beakful of earthtone feathers.

  But Walks Backward had expected such a move and had intentionally left that part of himself open to a feint. Waiting until the last possible instant, he had backed away, then kicked upward as the rogue drew back with his meager reward of chest feathers. His upward traveling foot smashed into the younger bird’s head, snapping it back and up in a powerful and disorienting blow. The Scarlet rogue was stunned and at a sudden and overpowering disadvantage. His body reeled drunkenly and it even looked as if he would go down.

  However, as the elder terror bird lunged to slash again with his right claw, the Scarlet was able to turn. Moving quickly the rogue found his feet steady beneath him, churning the loam and sending himself away from immediate danger. In seconds he had picked up a considerable speed and was heading directly for one of the human homes. There was only a stand of small pines and a low wooden barrier separating their battle site from the human nest. The Scarlet rogue rushed through those green limbs and bounded easily over the barrier.

  Walks Backward hesitated only for a second and then followed the object of his hatred. It was too late to play the old games any longer. With a scream, he was after the larger bird.

  Immediately the dogs of the humans began to emerge from small dens and from the nests of humans, barking and yapping and sending up a clamor of alarm that was not unfamiliar to any member of the Flock. They had heard the sounds many times from the packs of feral dogs who sometimes tried to insinuate themselves into the birds’ domain. With the two sprinting across the grazed grassy patches that surrounded the human nests, men began to emerge from those nests, to see the two creatures who were moving at great speed and in plain sight. Now, if there had been any doubt, a long and successful era was ended for the Flock. With renewed hatred Walks Backward did his best to reduce the lead the Scarlet rogue had produced with his quick retreat and great stride.

  The terror birds raced on and on through Salutations USA. The puny humans emerged time and again from their homes, chattering and screaming, chattering and screaming.

  Ron got out of the car first. Gripping the rifle in his sweaty, bruised hands, he moved as fast as he was able past the parked vehicles and the people who were milling this way and that to get a good look at the battling monsters.

  “What are they?” some woman asked him.

  “They look like dinosaurs,” someone answered.

  “They ain’t dinosaurs. All the dinosaurs are dead,” a learned individual informed both.

  “They’re big birds,” a young, blonde woman said, correcting them all.

  “But birds ain’t got arms,” the dinosaur expert reminded her. And then, seeing Ron and Mary with the rifles they’d taken from the dead men, he addressed them. “You guys gone kill them animals, now?”

  Shoving past the guy, Riggs and Niccols got in as close as they were able. Just on the other side of a ring of Caddys and Beemers the two terror birds were going at one another beak and claw. The street was covered in feathers torn free from flesh and spattered with bright red dollops of blood. Most of the blood and feathers seemed to be coming from the reddish bird, even though it was quite the larger of the two. The friends just stood in place for a moment, watching the fight and marveling at the wonderful creatures.

  “How tall do you think the red one is, Mary?”

  “Ten feet. Easy. Must weigh seven, eight hundred pounds, I’d say.” The pavement vibrated for her as the thing came down from a leap and a slashing blow, as if to punctuate Niccols’ estimation.

  “God. They’re beautiful,” Ron said. He stared up at the things who towered over the small human beings watching the death fight. While he watched, the smaller, brown one got in a tremendous kick that sprayed blood over the hood of a car. This brought a cheer from some of the people watching.

  “When you gonna shoot them?” the dinosaur genius screamed in Ron’s ear from about six inches away. He’d not even heard the guy approach over the screeching of the birds.

  “We’re not going to shoot them, you jerk. Not if we can help it,” Mary yelled at the expert, shoving the flabby man away. “Now get out of here before you get hurt.”

  At that point, a car belonging to the Salutations Security outfit came to a halt beyond the traffic jam, the sting of burning rubber gliding from opposite side of the intersection. Three men climbed out, rather in a hurry. All of them were armed with good hunting rifles. Ron and Mary watched in some horror as the three struggled in close to the two birds and took up positions that would enable them to get off clear shots. “Get out of the line of fire,” one was screaming at the idiots on Ron’s side of the battle.

  “Damnation,” Mary said. “They’re going to kill them.”

  “They wouldn’t,” Ron stuttered.

  “They by God would, too. They’ll gun them both down right here and right now. You wait and see. And there’s not a thing we can do about it, unless you want to be guilty of murdering those men.”

  Riggs watched, his throat tensing, his heart pounding as the security guards waited for the people to move away from out of their gunsights. They were slowly drawing beads on the gigantic animals who were still biting and clawing and slashing at one another. Two monsters who should have become extinct a long time ago were about to meet a delayed end. Ron could almost feel the fingers squeezing on those triggers. He waited to hear the reports.

  “Stop,” someone screamed. “Don’t shoot them.”

  Ron looked across. It was Vance Holcomb. The rich man was literally climbing over cars to get to the three security guards. They all turned their heads slightly to see who was coming toward them, but none took their barrels away from the intended targets. Through it all, the two terror birds continued their battle, their screeching cries becoming more intense and louder as the fight became bloodier and more desperate. It was becoming obvious to everyone that the reddish one was losing.

  “Get back, mister,” one of the guards said to Holcomb as he came in close. But Holcomb did not get back. He dove right in and put his hand on the barrel of that rifle and forced it down.

  “You shoot that bird and so help me God I’ll kill you all,” he growled at the trio. There was desperation and complete hatred in his dirty, tired, mad face.

  The three private cops exchanged glances and the two who could once more aimed their guns.

  “Wait a minute,” Holcomb told them. “Let me try this, first.” And, reaching into the nylon pouch around his waist, he drew out the dart pistol, the single item he had taken with him from his now destroyed lab. “It’s loaded with tranq darts,” he told them. “Let me try this first. That’s all I ask.”

  The hired guns glanced again into one another’s eyes, but said nothing.

  “These animals are unique,” Holcomb said. “You kill them and it’s going to be bad news for you.” This did not seem to melt their resolve. “And it’ll be big bad news for Berg Brothers,” he added. They lowered their guns.

  “Take your best shot,” one of the guards said.

  The Scarlet rogue and Walks Backward were still at it. Each seemed to be trying to avoid the other’s slashing beak. And with good reason, for a claw slash was much less likely to deliver a killing wound that those razor-edged jaws. Up and down the two birds went, bouncing on massively muscled legs, the asphalt tremoring each time one came down.

  Holcomb stepped up, drew a bead. The birds moved. First one was in his sights, then the other. Which one should he hit? The brown one was winning. If he hit the brown one, it was in the best shape to switch its attack to the people around it. But what if the brown one went down? The red bird might be desperate and also turn its rage on the people. He had already seen what the red one had d
one to Grisham’s men. Making his decision, he aimed and fired. There was a quick report and the dart flew true, striking its intended target.

  Both birds were aware of the short, quick explosion of sound.

  Walks Backward felt a sudden, sharp pain in his side. It was just a prick. Like the times he had been stung by hornets—it was nothing serious. But almost immediately his legs felt weak and there seemed to be a cool numbness running through his muscles. He buckled and went down, seeing the great claws of the Scarlet rogue waiting just beyond his head, which now lay prone against the hard earth. With one eye he could see his adversary standing over him, and there was nothing he could do.

  For a held breath, the Scarlet rogue realized something was wrong with his enemy. Walks Backward shuddered where he lay and he could not even kick out in defense. The rogue stood and peered in amazement. Death from a distance, just as the histories had said.

  The Scarlet turned his head back, and he saw the human standing there. It was The Man Who Watches, and in his grasp was one of the things humans sometimes held. Other humans were standing with him, similarly armed. He drew his huge legs beneath him in a sudden moment of desperation and fear. Screaming one of the human sounds at them, he sprang forward, away from the man who had felled Walks Backward.

  Ron and Mary and the dinosaur expert all ducked as the gigantic terror bird jumped and sailed over them in a long, fluid leap. It landed beyond them, impacting on the hood of a Caddy and leaving a cratered dimple there before it leaped again. In a second it had gained the yard beyond the car and it was sprinting, down the street, headed for the forest that beckoned down the way.

  Looking toward Holcomb, Ron saw one of the security guards trying to draw a bead on the retreating bird. But even if there had been no one in his line of sight, it would have done him no good. For once again Holcomb was there to force the barrel toward the ground. Holcomb and the guard glared at one another.

  And soon the bird was gone.

  For a time, there was almost complete silence. Then, tentatively, first Holcomb, and then Ron and Mary crept up to the still form of the giant bird lying upon the dark pavement. And finally, the crowd held at bay by the guards and the others who were now arriving to back them up, the people began to mutter.

  “Did you hear it?”

  “I didn’t imagine it.”

  “It talked. It said something.”

  “Did you hear what it said?”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Irons sat in his office atop the Berg Brothers tower in downtown Orlando. He was calm. He was cool. The news was pouring into him by the second. His fax machines whirred constantly and his e-mail was logjammed and his other lines rang incessantly.

  But he was cool.

  He had picked up the phone and he had made a phone call. One was all it would take. Now he would just have to wait. He sighed and buzzed his secretary.

  A day later.

  Davis Cauthen was there. He sat in Grisham’s office, the two of them with Cauthen’s own assistant, a willowy man named Morgan, and Redmond was there. They had things to talk about before Grisham went out once again to wipe out those damned birds.

  “It’s too late for this kind of action, Winston,” Cauthen told him. “The word’s out. Too many people saw them. The government is already down here like white on rice, and you know it. There’s nothing you can do, now.”

  Colonel Grisham sat and steamed. His face was pale with rage. “Well, I’m not taking the fall for this bull. My men were supposed to clean Holcomb’s place, mop it up, leave nothing. But those damned birds took my men out. All of them.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his military-cut head in disbelief.

  “They’re going to be here to question you, soon, Winston. And there are things you’re going to have to say. You’re going to have to take some of the heat for this. You know that.” Senator Cauthen looked grimly at his old friend. His expression was not without some pity.

  “No way. I’m not taking any heat for this. I have the proof of who ordered this action, how I was bribed and entrapped into it. And I’m going to cough it all up to the media. I won’t play their stinking games. Do you hear me?” He smashed his hard fists down on the desk to punctuate his threat.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, Win. You don’t really mean it, do you?”

  “You’re damned right I mean it. I’m not playing any games with these Yankee assholes. They don’t know who I am or what I am. They know nothing of the things we deal with on a daily basis: our word, and the loyalty of our fellows. I’ve got the proposal they offered me, and I have the information they already had concerning the existence of these damned monsters.”

  “That’s your final word then,” Cauthen said.

  “It is. You can take that back to them. We’ll see how this ends up. You have my word on it. And I have my men. Men like Redmond here, who will always stand up for me.”

  “Well, then.” Cauthen cleared his throat.

  At that signal, Cauthen’s assistant and Redmond were on Grisham in a flash. The younger men each rushed forward and held him down. The old colonel stared in complete shock at the two, then at his old friend. “What? What’s the meaning, Davis? What are you do—”

  But he never finished the question. For Cauthen produced and had jammed the barrel of a .44 magnum into Grisham’s opened mouth and pulled the trigger. All three men were spattered with blood and tissue as the bullet emerged from the top of the colonel’s skull and lodged in one of the old books on a shelf just behind his head.

  “What happened here, Redmond?” Cauthen asked as he straightened.

  “We tried to stop him. That’s why he called you down here. To help him out of the jam he’d gotten himself into. He ordered the attack on Holcomb’s compound, to try to get rid of the commie eco-freak. And while you were sitting here trying to talk him into turning himself in, he blew his brains out. We tried to stop him, but it was just no good. He was a determined man.”

  Wiping the pistol clean of his prints, the senator placed it in the hand of his old friend. “Very good, son. I’m sure you’ll find your life enriched by your testimony. You keep mind of that each time you buy something nice for your kids or that new house for your wife.”

  “Don’t give it another thought, sir.”

  No one did.

  In Irons’ office, a special line rang for him. Only three people had that number, and he always picked it up. On the other end a familiar voice spoke to him.

  “It’s taken care of,” the voice said. “Grisham ordered it alone.”

  “Thanks for the news,” Irons said. And he hung up.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Looking back on it, Ron had to be amused.

  After the brown one went down and the red one ran off, the place had almost become the media-driven madhouse Mary had predicted. As if what had happened already had not been bad enough.

  The first thing that happened was that Holcomb seemed to take command, despite the fact that most of the officials who showed up were employed by a company that thought of him as an implacable foe. It was rather funny, or would have been in a world in which true justice exits. A large truck with a large cage was needed, Holcomb had informed the security boys. And somehow, some way, just such a contraption was located. And before Big Bird woke up. It was all so comforting to see the truck arrive and the bird be locked safely behind iron bars just before it began to stir.

  And that’s when Holcomb noticed Ron and Mary. Really noticed them.

  “What are you doing with those guns?” he asked, pointing at the rifles with the very fancy nightscopes mounted on.

  Ron and Mary stammered for a bit, the hired cops looking upon them with suspicion now that the resident jillionaire had singled them out for questioning. Their cop brows went up in what amounted to curiosity behind their thick skulls. What came out of Ron and Mary was, basically, “We got them from dead guys.” They were quickly disarmed and handcuffed.

  But they were
not formally arrested until the real police arrived from the county seat.

  From there, things got interesting and it was only after long bouts of questioning and the hiring of lawyers and the arrival of further representation from Fish & Wildlife that first Ron, and then Mary were released. After a few days their story was finally believed and authorities took them at their word that they were not involved in the killings that had taken place at Holcomb’s compound. It was roughly around the time that Holcomb appeared on their behalf with testimony from a witness to corroborate their tale.

  “Kate Kwitney was there. She saw the whole sordid event unfold,” Holcomb had told them. And sure enough, the wounded young woman had told her tale from her hospital bed. Her own story was pretty amazing, too, Ron and Mary thought. The militia madmen had left the lady for dead, and only when Holcomb had arrived with help was she discovered unconscious in the lab where she and her murdered coworkers had often worked.

  In the days thereafter, Ron and Mary tried to convince everyone who would listen that Kate had provided the killers with aid, had even gunned down Adam Levin. But she said it had been an unfortunate accident; that she was aiming for one of the killers she saw in the forest. She would never touch a gun again as long as she lived, she pouted to one and all.

  The newspapers and the video magazines had a field day with it. Grisham, extremist nut that he was, took the fall for everything. But Ron and Mary knew better. Not that the information meant anything. They had talked it over and had decided not to rock the boat. It wouldn’t do either of them any good, and might even get them sued into oblivion, the only fate they knew of worse than death.