by Jake Bible
They looked like crows, but were too big. They were bigger than even the largest raven Darren had ever seen. But he knew they weren’t ravens. Their beaks were all wrong. They had the narrow beaks of crows, not the wide beaks of ravens.
Crows. Had to be crows. Crows on steroids. A lot of steroids.
“What do you want?” Darren asked.
“Seriously?” Kinsey exclaimed. “You’re going to talk to them?”
“Seriously?”
“What do you want?”
“Seriously, what do you want?”
“Going to talk to them? Seriously?”
The mocking Ballantine had warned them about was in full effect. The birds didn’t shut up even when Darren and Kinsey went quiet. The winged beasts were obviously enjoying themselves, letting out cackle-like caws in between the mocking words.
“Shut up!” Kinsey yelled.
“Shut up!” the birds responded as one.
Then they went silent.
The largest of the birds, easily three feet tall, flew down from the branch it had been sitting on, and hopped close to Kinsey.
“Shut. Up,” the bird said. “Shut. Up.”
“Don’t move,” Darren warned. “Stay still. It’s challenging you.”
“Ya think?” Kinsey growled. “It may not be human, but I speak fluent asshole. I know a challenge when I see one.”
“Shut. Up,” the large bird hissed. “Seriously.”
It flew back up to its branch and cawed loudly. The tree was instantly filled to the top by the other birds, weighing it down so much that it almost bent to the ground. The birds seemed to love the precarious tension that created, hopping back and forth between each other so the tree never stopped bouncing up and down.
The movements looked random, but Darren kept his focus on the main bird, the leader, and it became apparent that the birds weren’t just hopping around on the tree like it was their personal trampoline. They were shifting positions, cycling through different groups, conversing with each other in short, sharp grunts and quiet caws.
“They’re having a meeting,” Darren said. Something about crow behavior slammed into his brain. “Oh, shit.”
“Shut. Up,” the flock insisted.
“‘Ren? What is it?” Kinsey asked.
Darren shook his head and hissed at her to be quiet.
The flock hissed at her as well. Some of the birds even left the meeting and flew a couple of dive bombing runs over Kinsey’s head. She ducked down, but didn’t cry out or yell at the birds. Darren frowned at her, worried, but she nodded that she was going to be cool.
The meeting came to an end and the lead bird left the tree, flying to land a meter in front of Darren. The other birds left the tree simultaneously, sending the tree springing back upright. Except for one bird. It stayed and was catapulted high into the sky. It cackled and laughed the entire way and several of the other birds cawed at it in obvious admonishment. The lead bird ignored the noise behind it and cocked its head at Darren.
“Jury,” the lead bird said.
Darren shook his head. “I don’t understand,” he replied.
But he did understand. The tidbit of crow behavior he’d remembered was that the birds were known to hold actual trials. They would line up as juries and decide the fate of a crow that had broken the flock’s rules.
No…not flock. Murder.
A murder of crows. That was what a group of them was called. Why? Because when the jury was in and a verdict was handed down, most often than not, it was a death sentence on the offending crow.
Except this murder of crows hadn’t convened to decide the fate of one of their own, but of Darren and Kinsey.
“Die,” the lead bird said. It was a very clear word and there was no misunderstanding. “Die.”
“Darren,” Kinsey said quietly.
Darren’s brain calculated how fast it would take him and Kinsey to draw their M4s and open fire. They should have already had the carbines at the ready, but they’d been distracted by carrying Thorne’s stretcher and then the appearance of a flock of giant crows.
Murder.
There was no way to outrun the crows. Even if he and Kinsey could make it back to the pool and dive in instead of rushing forward towards the beach, there was Thorne. They’d have to leave him. Then what? The crows would hand down their punishment on the old man?
Didn’t matter. The chain of events was decided for them. For Darren and Kinsey as well as for the crows.
“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!” Gunnar screamed as he and the trail board came flying over the edge of the cliff, only a couple meters from where the waterfall tumbled down into the pool.
Darren couldn’t help himself. He had to turn and look. There was his best friend, arms flailing, legs kicking, with some sort of funky skateboard just below him falling all the way into the pool just like Darren, Kinsey, and Thorne had done an hour before.
Darren may have been stunned by Gunnar’s appearance, as were the crows as they gaped with their beaks wide open at the falling and screaming human, but Kinsey didn’t let the opportunity slip by. She pulled her M4 free, racked the slide, and opened fire, shredding six crows into guts and feathers before any of the others even knew what was happening.
Then all hell broke loose as the swarm of blowflies that had followed Gunnar caught sight of Darren, Kinsey, the crows, and especially the fresh guts and blood splattered everywhere. As one, the swarm dove from the top of the cliff straight at them all.
Chapter Ten: You Can Check In, But You Can’t Check Out
The birds went for the blowflies. The blowflies went for the birds.
Darren and Kinsey went for the pool with Darren diving back in to fetch Gunnar who had just hit the surface and was still falling down into the depths of the crystal clear water. Kinsey took a knee and covered them as she swept the M4 back and forth, ready to fire if either the swarm of blowflies or the murder of crows came at them.
Neither came for them. They were too engrossed in attacking each other. The blowflies swarming over the huge crows and the huge crows gobbling up as many blowflies as their beaks could hold and throats could swallow. It was a buzzing, cawing, flying mass of black wings, tiny and large.
Darren broke the surface with Gunnar in tow and swam over to the edge of the pool.
“Come on, Gun,” Kinsey snapped. “Get your ass out of the water. We need to go.”
“Yeah, okay, Kins, don’t mind the fact I just fell like fifty feet into ice cold water,” Gunnar gasped as he scrambled up onto the ground.
“How do you think we got down here?” Kinsey snapped. “Pussy.”
“Good to see you too,” Gunnar said as he stood up then bent over and coughed half a gallon of water from his lungs. “Fuck me.”
“No time for almost drowning,” Darren said and patted Gunnar on the back. “We have to get Vincent to the beach and meet Lucy and Ballantine.”
“Yeah, I heard the new plan,” Gunnar said. “Good idea since the trail board is at the bottom of that pool and wouldn’t be much help anymore.”
“Trail board?” Kinsey asked and shook her head. “Fucking elves. I swear they invent shit just to make our lives absurd. A trail board? Seriously?”
“Seriously?” a crow echoed as it flew down close to Kinsey’s head.
It became an explosion of blood and feathers as Kinsey put a couple rounds into its body.
“Yeah!” Kinsey shouted. “Seriously!”
“Knock that off!” Darren barked. “We don’t need to draw their attention!”
“Whatever,” Kinsey said and hurried over to the stretcher where her father still lay unconscious. “Gun? Do your thing.”
“At the beach,” Gunnar said. He looked up at the sky, past the swarming birds and flies, and at the clouds that lazily floated by. “It’s going to be dark soon and I don’t know how long it’ll take us to get there. We need to move. I’ll assess Vincent when we reach Lucy and Ballantine.”
Kinsey looked like she
was going to argue, but several sharp caws above changed her mind. She angled her M4 towards the approaching birds and the crows quickly veered off, flying back into the anonymous mass of fighting birds and flies.
“Then let’s do this shit,” Kinsey said. “You want me to carry or cover?”
“How you feeling, Gun?” Darren asked. “Up for carrying a stretcher?”
“I feel like hammered shit,” Gunnar said. “I’m exhausted and need to sleep for a month. But I suspect that’s how you both feel, so since I’m not nearly as good a shot as Kinsey, I’ll take an end of the stretcher while she covers us.”
“Cover it is,” Kinsey said and moved into position as Darren and Gunnar picked up Thorne.
The commander tensed, grunted and shook his head, then quieted down and his body relaxed.
“Is he still breathing?” Kinsey asked, looking over her shoulder at the stretcher as she walked backwards, her M4 aimed at the aerial battle above. “Gun? Is my dad still breathing?”
“He’s breathing,” Gunnar acknowledged. “I can see his chest moving. But it’s not strong.”
“Then double time it,” Kinsey snapped. “Get a move on and let’s get the fuck to the beach.”
“You know where we’re going?” Gunnar asked Darren, ignoring Kinsey’s gruffness.
“This way,” Darren said and walked into the jungle.
“I had some killer glasses before I took a swim,” Gunnar said. “They had a map of the island and everything. I could’ve told you how far the beach was from here.”
“Less talk, more walk,” Kinsey said.
“Sweet Jesus, Kins,” Gunnar sighed. “Do you know how much you sound like your father right now?”
Kinsey didn’t respond. She kept her eyes on the birds and blowflies until they were all the way in the jungle and she could no longer see the pool or what was fighting above it. As soon as she lost sight of the pool, she turned around and hurried past Darren, Gunnar, and the stretcher to take point.
“They might still come for us,” Darren said.
“I think we’ll hear them coming,” Kinsey replied. “The flies aren’t silent and those birds sure as hell aren’t silent. They talk more than my cousins.”
“Talk?” Gunnar asked.
“Crows,” Darren replied.
“Those are pretty big crows,” Gunnar said.
“Ballantine,” Kinsey said as if that answered everything. Which it pretty much did.
Although, Ballantine wanted to add his own thoughts on the subject.
“Not my design,” Ballantine said over the com. “The birds, the beetles, the blowflies, none of it. Just want to state that again for the record.”
“What about the snakes?” Gunnar asked.
“Snakes? I don’t remember there being any snakes,” Ballantine said. “Those are new. How big were they?”
“I only saw the one, but it was big,” Gunnar said. “Although, come to think of it, it wasn’t Ballantine big, just nature big. Maybe that wasn’t your fault.”
“None of this is my fault,” Ballantine said. “Okay, I’ll cop to the beetles, but they were created for a different island. I never wanted them here. I crossed this island off the viable list a long time ago. It was supposed to be purged, along with the person that had betrayed me, but apparently that order never went through. I sort of dropped the ball.”
“Ya think?” Kinsey snapped. “And apparently, your lack of oversight has resulted in my cousin being lost and my father having a heart attack.”
“I can’t be blamed for the heart attack,” Ballantine said, but not over the com. He suddenly appeared before them, stepping out from between two palms. “Come on. Beach is this way. You were a lot closer than you knew.”
The plant life thinned quickly and they broke through to a white sand beach and the sun glaring at them. It took a second for their eyes to adjust, and once they did, they saw what waited on the beach.
It wasn’t just Lucy sitting in the Zodiac, but there was another boat, a small craft that had obviously come from Nivia’s yacht. It was easy to tell from the expensive woodwork. The expensive woodwork that had been gnawed and chewed by hungry beetles.
That wasn’t all. There were a couple of skeletons picked clean, their bones bleaching in the sun, but not yet that perfect white. They still held the yellow of fresh death and there were scraps of clothes flitting about the sand close by, looking like they weren’t sure if it was time to leave the bodies they had formerly covered or if they were still on duty.
“We should bring the other boat,” Darren said. “Let’s get Vincent secured then we’ll shove the boat into the water and check it.”
“And if it doesn’t work?” Kinsey asked. “We don’t have time to dick around, ‘Ren.”
“Resources are low, ‘Sey,” Darren replied. “We need it.”
“He’s right,” Ballantine said. “Get Commander Thorne on the Zodiac and Gunnar and Lucy can take him back pronto.”
“Pronto is good,” Kinsey said.
“If the boat doesn’t work, then we’ll call for you to return,” Ballantine said to Lucy as Darren and Gunnar set the stretcher into the Zodiac and started strapping it down. “We may need some more weapons, if you do come back.”
“We’ll need all the weapons when we go get Shane,” Kinsey said.
“I’m on the com,” Lucy said. “Keep me posted.”
“Will do,” Darren said as he helped push the Zodiac from the beach and into the water.
Once it had floated out enough, Lucy started up the motor, yanked the handle to the left, and turned the raft around so it could speed off out of the cove, leaving Darren, Kinsey, and Ballantine alone with the beached boat.
“Let’s see what it can do,” Darren said and grabbed the bow, ready to shove the boat into the surf.
Ballantine went to help him while Kinsey leapt into the boat. She gave a short yelp when she nearly stepped on a bare to the bone skeleton.
“Shit!” she cried. “Got another body!”
“That must be Tessie,” Ballantine said, helping Darren rock the bow of the boat to create a trench in the sand, making it easier to slide back into the surf. “Nivia gave me an extensive breakdown of events. Tessie was her sister-in-law. Or common law. Something. Not quite sure of the relationship dynamics.”
“I doubt that,” Kinsey said. “You are always aware of the relationship dynamics with the people around you. So don’t even try to pretend.”
“Pretend? Me?” Ballantine laughed. “Kinsey Thorne, I’m offended.”
“No, you’re not,” Kinsey said as she turned the key, but didn’t start the motor. “Battery is still working. The boat has electricity.”
The sound of breaking branches, crashing leaves, and angry caws echoed out over the beach. Ballantine looked at Darren then at Kinsey.
“Friends of yours?” Ballantine asked.
“Ha ha,” Darren said.
“We should hurry,” Ballantine stated. “If you’ve survived them once, then they will doubtfully let you survive again.”
“Won’t they just follow us?” Kinsey asked, making sure her M4 was within a quick grab. “They’re birds, Ballantine. They can fly.”
“I doubt they’ll leave the island,” Ballantine said. “These birds are particularly territorial. That’s why you went on trial.”
“So you knew they’d do that?” Darren asked, the boat almost all the way back in the water. He put his shoulder against it and pushed with his legs. It slid free and began to float away. “There! Come on!”
He grabbed onto the boat and swung himself up onto the bow then leaned over and grabbed Ballantine’s hand as the man chased after into the surf. Ballantine was up next to Darren when the crows broke from the trees and came flying at them all.
“Take the wheel!” Kinsey shouted as she started the engine then moved out of the way so she could get a shot off with her M4.
Darren didn’t argue, just slid down into the pilot’s seat, taking the w
heel and whipping it around as he pushed the throttle forward. Ballantine was nearly thrown clear of the boat, but he managed to scramble down to a seat as Darren sent them rocketing out of the cove.
The crows were out over the water and swooping down at them, large beaks, large claws, angry eyes.
Kinsey took out four more, then her M4 clicked empty.
“Shit!” she cried.
“Here!” Darren yelled as he yanked a magazine free from his belt and tossed it to her.
Kinsey caught it easily, even with the boat bouncing up and down over the waves. She ejected the spent one, inserted the full one, slapped the bottom to make sure it was seated fully, racked the slide, then opened fire.
Four more crows exploded in the air before the rest turned around and headed back to the safety and cover of the trees. Once Kinsey was sure the crows weren’t coming back, she slung the M4 and sat down next to Ballantine, exhaling a sigh that carried more weariness than any young woman should have to carry.
“We will formulate a plan,” Ballantine said. “I already lost Mike. His death is on me. I admit that.”
“Tell that to my father,” Kinsey said. “When he wakes up.”
“He’ll wake up, do not worry,” Ballantine said. “He has Gunnar and Nivia working on him. Apparently, she is a professional nurse. That is a handy skill set to have on the ship now.”
“She won’t be able to stay with us,” Darren said. “We’ll have to drop her off somewhere.”
Ballantine didn’t respond.
“Ballantine?” Darren said, glancing over at the man for a quick second before turning his attention back out to the water in front of the boat. “Ballantine, she can’t stay with us.”
“I am not sure she has much of a choice in the matter,” Ballantine said. “She knows too much about us.”
“Pull your covert head out of your spy ass,” Kinsey said. “We aren’t going to keep her prisoner.”
“No, we are not, that I agree with,” Ballantine said. “I will give her a choice. What she chooses dictates her fate.”
“What the fuck?” Kinsey snapped. “So if she chooses to go home, you’ll kill her?”
“It is not that cut and dry,” Ballantine said. “There will be nuanced negotiations, I am certain. But in the end, she will have to choose to stay with us and be free or leave us and risk whatever must be done to ensure our safety.”