The Nature of Balance

by Tim Lebbon

  Mary, too, had sensed a change as soon as the doors slid open. Even as the bitch Peer shouted for them to run, Mary was turning and aiming for the kitchens behind the restaurant. They were a good thirty feet distant, she knew, but they were also away from the others. And while whatever came in the door was occupying itself with Blane and the rest, she could run and hide. She did not wonder what Fay would think of her actions; she did not consider whether or not this was the ‘right time’ to get rid of Peer, or to attack Blane. Such thoughts, even powerful ones instilled by Fay, were driven out by terror, and a sense of self-preservation Mary had thought lost forever. With Roger and the gang it had been living because she was too afraid to die unwanted. Now, she wanted to live because she saw a full, rich life ahead. One where she was needed, and respected.

  So she ran.

  And the first wave of birds caught her half way across the restaurant.

  She swung the chain around her head, feeling the soft thuds of multiple impacts and hearing the pained squeaks of damaged birds. Within seconds the chain had slipped from her hand, handle slick with blood.

  She went down, shaking her head to dislodge the flapping creatures caught in her hair, crying out as cruel beaks and claws scraped at her eyes. A smell enveloped her, warm and musty, and rich-smelling shit pattering down around her. Something was hanging onto her eyebrow, a small bird, pecking at her eyes as though they were caged nuts. Dipping its beak, twisting, jerking its head down again, twisting …

  Mary flung herself at the floor head first. She felt the delicate crunch of bones as the offending bird was crushed. It remained attached to her forehead as she rolled across the floor, colliding with chair and tables. Bodies crushed and popped beneath her, but there were always a hundred more to take their place as she came out of the roll. Soon she hit the food counter; there was nowhere left to go. She curled into a ball and protected her head. Beaks pressed into her back, her buttocks, between her legs. She thought of Fay.

  Peer struck the toilet door and pushed her way in, dragging Holly through behind her. With their combined weight they managed to shut the door, but already hundreds of birds had gained entry. They began to dive-bomb the women, uttering no noise but loud nonetheless, their wings sounding like a huge sheet being flipped and waved.

  Glass broke. A stream of birds gushed in, as if spat through the window from outside.

  “Oh no!” Peer screamed. The birds fanned out, striking the line of urinals, hitting the wall and twisting, dazed, to the floor. They slowed their attack. “Stop it!” Peer shouted, and those assaulting Holly lessened their violence. Soon, they were simply hanging from Holly’s ears, her torn clothing, heads jerking and beaks red and gleaming.

  “Peer!” Holly whined.

  “Stay still.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know.” Peer put her ear to the door. Someone was screaming, Spike was barking and growling, the roar of the attacking birds outside continued like a violent waterfall. She readied herself to open the door. She felt she could do it. She did not know what ‘it’ was, precisely, but it had worked in here.

  She opened the door.

  Holly screamed. “Peer, no!”

  The birds poured through, a pent up flood, knocking Peer back. She felt like she was suffocating, every breath gave her a mouthful of feathers, each way she turned was darkened with birds.

  And then the noise stopped.

  The silence was shocking. The birds dropped out of the air. A few mild twitters or an occasional flapping wing were the only signs of fleeing life. Within seconds, Peer and Holly were surrounded by a thick carpet of dead birds, three deep. Feathers floated in the air, a gentle snow flurry compared to the blazing blizzard they had just experienced.

  Blood dripped into Peer’s eye. She wiped it hurriedly away and looked out into the foyer, terrified at what she would see. She remember the dead people from the Cavalier and Mercedes, the gleaming white of bones, the raw red of exposed flesh. A whine escaped her, an unconscious sound of desperation and despair.

  The whole area she could see – foyer, shop, restaurant – was a vibrating sea of birds. Some still moved, on top and underneath, giving the appearance of waves and ripples. The walls and ceiling had been blooded and feathered. The glass on either side of the entrance doors was cracked and starred, and the doors themselves were wedged open, whining in frustration as they tried again and again to close.

  There was movement in front of her. Peer stepped back as two bodies broke the surface, gasping and spluttering, spitting out feathers and blood.

  Blane and Paul.

  “What the hell?” Paul gasped rhetorically. He looked around, rubbing blood from his eyes and wincing as he scraped his hand across a dozen tiny cuts on his eyelids.

  “They all died,” Peer said. “Dropped like something stepped on them.”

  Blane shook his head. “We’re being toyed with,” he muttered. He did not elaborate, and nobody asked him what he had meant. He realised that he was not entirely sure himself. What he did know was that this transgressed every law of normality. The birds were dead, not merely collapsed in a heap. The attack, though extraordinary, was at least believable. The synchronised death of thousands of birds was patently absurd. Yet here he was, kneeling amongst the pathetic bodies.

  Yes, they were being toyed with. Like mice, tossed around by a cat before the coup de grace was delivered.

  “Where are June and Mary?” Paul asked.

  “I saw Spike a few moments ago,” Blane said. “June … she was at the door when the birds came in.” They all turned to look, Holly stepping up behind Peer and holding the woman’s arms as she looked over her shoulder. They were panting with terror and exertion; blood blew from their lips and misted the air.

  The doors were moving slowly back and forth, motors humming as their attempts to shut were foiled by the dead things in the way. The piles of birds were deepest there, where they had still been struggling to get in from outside, and a diminishing heap fanned across the pavement and out towards the car park. Across the parking lots, individual bodies stippled the surface like boils on dark skin.

  “I’ll go,” said Paul.

  “Paul…” Blane began, but the big man ignored him and started for the door.

  He took the longest steps possible. He could hear and feel the crunching bones and splitting bodies, feel fluid warmth soaking into his jeans and tipping over the rim of his low boots, but there was no other way to move. He stared resolutely ahead. The further he went, the more it looked as though he had been blooded and feathered. A sick cartoon character, designed to disgust, not to amuse.

  As he reached the door there was a loud noise behind him. He spun round and saw Spike bounding through the birds like a lamb in long grass, snapping here and there, his muzzle holding a hundred feathers on slick whiskers. The mutt kept biting, no matter how much Blane and the two women tried to calm him down, and Paul turned away from the sight.

  So much blood, he thought. Never knew there was so much blood in the world.

  The humming doors had frozen open now that he stood beneath the sensor.

  “June?”

  It was ridiculous. There was no sign of her. No hand above the pile, no streak of hair protruding like a safety line through an avalanche. Even if she were down there, she would be suffocated by now beneath the weight of dead birds. Calling her name was pointless.

  “June?”

  No answer. No alternative. He pointed his fingers and curled his thumbs into his palms, then forced his arms into the birds where they were piled the highest. Here, they were almost up to his thighs. He twisted his hands in a drilling motion, scratching them on beaks frozen open in death, sickened by the sensation of smooth feathers against his skin. He touched the floor, bent at the hip so that his face was only inches above the top layer of birds. He withdrew his arms, glanced around at the others. Their expressions did not change. He could see that they were suffering with him.

  �
��Just like lucky dip,” he said. He dived in again, further to the left, and this time his hands found something more substantial. He grabbed hold, tugging, forcing himself upright. Straining, lifting, the shape he was holding finally broke surface.

  He heard their mingled gasps. He was facing the ceiling, eyes shut with the effort. “Oh Jesus Christ,” Holly said. Paul did not look down. He did not need to see.

  “Is she dead?” he asked. Nobody answered for a moment. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. The fibre tiles were pitted and split where the birds had struck them, splashes of blood marking a thousand points of impact. A sparrow and several tits were impaled there, their beaks stuck fast. A sprout of black and white feathers marked one large dent in a tile. Magpie, Paul thought. The scrounger of the bird kingdom. The thug. Vicious, beautiful, scavenging, one of his favourite birds. The magpie had character.

  “I hope so,” Peer said at last. “Let her go, Paul.”

  Paul let go and turned around. The others had already averted their gaze.

  “We need medical supplies,” Holly said, wiping blood from her eyes and wincing as her arm rubbed against her tattered ears.

  “Lost you earrings,” Paul said. “I’ll buy you some new ones.”

  “New ears would suffice. I think I’ve grown out of jewellery.”

  “Spike!” Mary was standing at the entrance to the restaurant, bloody, hair plastered across her face. There was a dead bird pinned to her forehead somehow, leaking its own blood to mingle with hers’.

  “June’s dead,” Peer said.

  Mary glanced across to where Paul stood over the tattered body, then smiled as the dog emerged from the shop, still snapping at birds. He sank up to his stomach whenever he stopped, so he continued bounding across the grotesque floor, bouncing around Mary and accepting her friendly pats.

  At least she’s lost that bloody chain, Peer thought. “You all right?” she asked. “You’ve got a dead bird on your face.”

  Mary looked over at her but did not answer. She grabbed the pulped thing hanging above her eye and pulled, grunting as a flap of skin came away with its clasped claws. She offered the bird to Spike, who snapped it from her hand, shook it and threw it down amongst its dead cousins.

  “They must sell medical kits in the shop,” Blane said. “Mary, you’re nearest. See what you can find. Paul, you go out and bring the Mondeo up to the door. We’d better check the fuel. And fill the boot with food.”

  “Blane, let’s just get out of here before we start planning,” Peer said, not unkindly. “Sort ourselves out. We’re alive. We’ll worry about everything else once we’re out of this shithole.”

  Blane looked at her, nodded. He glanced across at Mary, nodded to her as well. She waded towards the shop, paying no particular attention to the dead creatures she was forcing her way through. Spike followed.

  “We’ll go to the petrol station,” Blane said. “Clean up. Stock up. Then get the hell away.”

  “Where to?” Peer asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Just away.”

  He stared around as the others headed towards the doors. The noise of crashing shelves came from the shop as Mary searched for medical kits.

  Someone’s toying with us. In all the confusion and terror the others seemed to have forgotten the murdered people they’d found only minutes ago. Some horrors were greater. Blane just could not help connecting the two.

  He remembered laughter, musical and sweet, accompanied by bird song. And as it replayed in his memory, it mutated into the chuckle he had heard in the woods. The sneering chortle which could so easily have come from the woman in the field.

  However much he hid, however much he ran, he still felt spied upon.

  21. Into the Wilds

  “Gas? Biological weapons? Germ warfare? I don’t know.” Holly paused. “Act of God?”

  Paul shrugged. “I think the last is most likely. Hold still.” They were in the disabled toilet of the petrol station. Blane had gone into the men’s with a first aid kit and locked the door behind him, Peer and Mary were cleaning each other up in the women’s. Holly had insisted on coming in here with Paul, saying she had to talk to him. Mary had grinned past torn lips, but they had both chosen to ignore her.

  “Mary frightens me,” she said, changing the subject quickly. “She’s weird. Shifty. And that dog of her’s … Ow!”

  “Sorry.” Paul was dabbing the blood from her ears with damp toilet paper, wincing when he saw the torn skin. “You need stitches.”

  “You any good?”

  He shook his head. “Oh no, not me. Well, I’ve never actually done it. But if you want …?”

  “I’ve seen worse stuff today,” she said absently. “Just put a bandage on, I’m not too worried about scarring. Just living.”

  They remained silent while Paul carefully applied antiseptic and sterilised bandages to her ears. “I’ll have to stick it down to your neck,” he said. “You’ll look a bit weird for a while.”

  “No problem.”

  Another pause.

  “Mary,” Paul said. “Hmm.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not a good judge of character. Really. I’m not qualified to pass judgement on someone I met a couple of hours ago.”

  Holly stared at him until she caught his eye. His bloodied face made his eyes stand out, stark and wide and friendly. She had trouble stopping herself from smiling at him stupidly. “First impression, then. Now. Don’t think about it, just say it.”

  “Spooky,” he said. “Insecure. Demanding attention. That bloody chain thing is enough to tell you that. Strange how she hooked up with Peer.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, Peer seems … nice. A little lost, but aren’t we all?”

  Holly thought over what he had said. “So who’s in charge out of those two?”

  “If anyone, Mary. But only because she feels she needs to be. And only because Peer is too gentle to exert authority, even though she’s the one who really has it.”

  “See?” Holly said. “Not such a bad judge of character. Potted psycho-analysis in five minutes.”

  “Come on, now,” Paul said, “only opinions. Not for human consumption, you know?”

  “Don’t worry,” she said, “I won’t tell a soul.” She shifted away from him slightly, caught the hem of her sweater. “I hope you’re not bashful. I feel like a fucking pepperpot, and blood is trickling everywhere.” She lifted the jumper over her head. She was not wearing a bra.

  “Oh … hey …” Paul muttered, turning away.

  “Paul,” Holly said, touched and angry at the same time. “I’m bleeding. I’ve seen more dead people today than I’ve ever had friends. The last thing I’m thinking about is … what you may think I’m thinking about. Are you thinking about it?”

  He glanced at her face, could not help looking down at her small breasts. They were bleeding in several places; there were cuts on her stomach which in better times would demand stitching; around the base of her neck, it looked as though someone had tried to perforate a line to make her head detachable. Blood had dribbled down and soaked into the top of her leggings, which were similarly holed. “Oh, Holly,” he said despairingly. He began to clean her wounds.

  Later, when he had finished, she cleaned him. He stripped down to his briefs and turned slowly as she washed each small cut and put a plaster on the worst ones. As well as the assault by the birds, his body was bruised and sore from his dream impact. He looked like a plane crash victim.

  They dressed together, smiling at one another, both enjoying the silent company. Suddenly, Holly did not want to leave. They could stay in here, venturing out to the petrol station shop now and then for chocolate and crisps and canned drinks, wait for help to arrive and rescue them. That ever-elusive help …

  “Do you think this has happened everywhere?”

  Paul paused in doing up his belt, looked at Holly for a moment, staring past her, seeing s
omething far more distant than her lacerated face. “That’s why we’ve got to keep moving, I suppose. To find out.”

  Holly nodded. “I suppose.”

  Outside, Blane was waiting for them. He was chewing slowly on a Mars bar, sipping from a bottle of water. He was still wearing his old clothes, though the cuts on his face and hands were now covered by small sticking plasters. “We’ve all got to learn to shave properly,” he said.

  “Blane,” Paul said. “A million birds attacked us. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I know as much as you.”

  “So who’s ‘toying with us’?”

  They were silent for a few seconds, three people thrown together by disaster, as different as random choice could have made them. Blane seemed to be struggling with some inner block, but soon he began to talk. He spoke quickly, throwing frequent glances at the women’s bathroom door.

  “I don’t know much about anything,” he said. “In fact, nothing. It’s all a confusion. Ever since this morning, I’ve had the feeling that I’m being followed. No, not even that.” He shook his head, sipped more water as he thought. “Orchestrated. Controlled. In the woods this morning, a deer died before me. It’s throat had been crushed. Then there were screams from the village, and I saw someone in the graveyard as I ran across the field.

  “It was the same someone I saw just before we found the dead farmer.”

  “The boy? You saw the someone who arranged the boy in the graveyard?” Holly spoke quietly, her voice shaking. She remembered the grotesque display, the hints of witchcraft and sacrifice.

  Blane nodded. “For me to find, I think.” He shrugged. “I know. And when I saw the woman in the field, next to the lane, she seemed to know me. She did know me. And I knew her. But I couldn’t place her.” He shook his head, looking down at the water bottle in his hand. “There’s so much about me you don’t understand.”