by Wendy Reakes
Chapter 56
Harry couldn’t move. He could only hold onto Melanie and pray she didn’t scream. He heard the children whimpering as they all faced the birds.
He watched Corporal Baines take three steps forward, making a path among the docile creatures. He looked devastated at the sight of his colleague’s dead on the sidewalk. He was surely resisting the urge to pick up his rifle and shoot every last one of them. Gladys went and stood next to him. She placed her hand on his arm. As he looked down at her, the sight of them up ahead was a poignant one. The tall young soldier and the small old lady from a farm in Cornwall.
Without speaking, as if the movement was as natural as night turning to day, Baines picked Gladys up and put her on his back. She hung on while he stepped slowly through the birds, pushing them gently out of the way with his feet.
He let her off into the cab of an army truck, its doors open, and birds resting on the hood. The back was boxed over in green army canvas, intact, not torn or penetrated in any way by the birds.
Harry watched the birds as the birds watched the soldier go back to the rest of the group. The creatures just stood there and pecked and toddled on their spiked feet. Baines lifted Melanie onto Harry’s back, he put Dolly onto Bill’s and then he took the two children onto his own.
The three men walked through the sea of birds, while they watched, and they cackled, and they squawked, but the people never said one word.
Everyone got in the back of the truck, except for Harry.
Harry and Baines closed the back and secured the fixtures, and as everyone sat on the side seats, waiting to find out if they were going to live or die, Harry followed the Corporal to the cab and got in. He closed the door quietly.
Gladys was still in there. She sniffed and held her head high, as the soldier turned on the ignition. She tapped his arm. “Good boy,” she said.
The birds on the hood flew away, landing on a pole overhead as Baines turned the truck around and drove away, through the crowds.
The streets were covered in them.
“I never knew there could be so many birds in the world,” Harry said.
Gladys shook her head. “Little sods.”
The infirmary was up the hill across town. If the corporal kept to the same slow speed, they would arrive in ten minutes,
It was curious how the birds just watched them. It certainly wasn't typical of their behavior over the past couple of days. Harry wondered why they hadn't attacked. Not that he was complaining. Maybe, it was just a matter of time now.
His arm ached like a son-of-a-bitch. He'd kill for some strong painkillers. Then all focus on his arm was lost when he saw the roadblock up ahead.
“Looks like everyone else had the same idea,” Baines said. “We’ll never get through”
“We can’t walk. We wouldn’t last two minutes,” said Harry. “Look, forget my arm. I can get it fixed up later. My house is across town. That’s where my family will be. Take us there and I’ll guarantee everyone’s safety.”
“How?”
“My house is fronted by hardened glass. And not only that, I know where we can go underground. But I’m not going until I get my wife and kids.”
Harry waited for his response, while sweat covered his face. He was almost done in. He needed to get home.
“Which way?” the bozo said.
Chapter 57
They didn’t hear the truck coming up the drive. The house was well insulated, buffering all noise from the front.
Ellen was pacing the floor, thinking about their best course of action. She wanted to stay, but the radio transmission said they should leave. She couldn’t decide what was best. Should she take the children and go underground? Would the birds even attack again? They may be over it. Things might have gone back to normal and she didn’t know it yet. Were the birds still crazy? She covered her face with her hands, wanting to block out the thoughts rattling around her confused mind. And all she could think was, where the hell was Harry when she needed him?
Then the door opened, and Harry walked in.
Ellen fell to her knees on the floor, knitting together her fingers as if in prayer. She wanted to say thank you, but she didn’t know who she was talking to.
He came to her with his arm tucked inside his jacket. He was filthy dirty, his face pale, and he looked like he was ready to pass out. “Thank god, you’re all right,” she sobbed.
He held her with one arm. “The kids?” he whispered, as if he was dreading her response.
“They’re all okay. They’re asleep in their rooms. We’re all okay.” She placed her hand on his arm, just as she noticed the others pile in through the front door. They looked a sorry bunch, but no one looked sorrier than Melanie. She came in and sat upon a chair as if she'd had her last stand.
Ellen looked into his eyes. “Harry,” she said. “Where the hell have you been?”
Harry stared back at Ellen. He didn’t know where to start explaining their journey from Cornwall to Bristol…to home. It had been a challenge, that was for sure, but judging by his wife’s appearance, she’d had a few challenges herself. He wanted to ask her a hundred questions. How did she fare with the restaurant? Was it still standing? How did she manage to keep the kids safe, and who were the people sitting at the table?
With blurring vision, he ogled the strangers across the other side of the room. One was about the same age as him, and another guy, old with a silver beard. He wanted to know who they were and how they got there. Why were they in his house? Most of all he wanted to know about the kids, that they were all right.
He wanted to hold his children and his wife. But for now, with that pain in his arm, and his head feeling fuzzy, Harry wanted to lie down on the floor of his own home.
So, that’s what he did.
Right there and then.
He closed his eyes, to blackness.
Bill rushed to Harry’s aid. He kneeled next to him and felt his pulse. It was slow. He’d passed out on the floor in front of his wife, probably from the pain in his arm and sheer exhaustion.
Without looking up, he sensed Dolly at his side. She spoke directly to Ellen as they all leaned over Harry’s prostate body. “He’s broken his arm and he’s in a lot of pain. We really need to set it,” she said. “He’s been through a great deal. He’s saved us more than once.”
Mark stood above them. “Will builder’s plaster do?”
Bill nodded. “We could try it. Why? You have some?”
“I saw a small sack in the shed.”
“That’s right. There is a sack of it,” said Ellen. “But I think it’s out of date.”
Ellen and Dolly looked at Bill in all seriousness.
He looked back at the two of them and shook his head, as if they were on a different planet to him. “That won’t matter,” he said slowly.
While he was unconscious, they bound Harry’s arm in bandages after Dolly had set it. They figured the break was below the elbow, which would be better for him while it healed. Mark mixed the plaster making it thick like paste, then they spread it over the bandages to create a cast. It would be heavy, but it was better than nothing.
Dolly bound the cast in a sling and moved his arm against his chest. “He won’t be able to move until it sets. Someone will have to watch him at all times.”
“I’ll watch him,” said Ellen.
"I've given him some painkillers, and as long as he rests a while, I think he will be okay."
"Thank you," Ellen said as she smoothed the hair away from Harry's face. "So, who are you exactly?"
“I’m Dolly, and this is my husband Bill…Harry and Mel…” she hesitated. She was wondering if Ellen knew about them, “came to our cottage in Cornwall.” Dolly and Bill looked embarrassed. “And you must be Ellen, Harry’s wife?”
“Ex,” Ellen said. “Ex-wife.”
Chapter 58
Ellen, Matt, Gemma and Molly, sat on the bed waiting for Harry to wake up. Molly was lying right next to him sucking h
er thumb. Gemma was crying, and Matt was just waiting. His arm was resting on a pillow over his bare chest. Ellen had washed his face and hands with a wet flannel, but when she looked at him, she’d noticed a change. She couldn’t decide what that was, until she realised he had a weathered look about him. He had experienced something few people had to go through in their lifetime and now it was etched on his face. She wondered if he’d ever go back to the man he was. She hoped not.
His eyes fluttered open and he saw his family sitting around him. They were alive. He hugged all his children, and for the first time in a long time, the four of them were happy to be in the same room together. Was that what it took? Ellen wondered, as Matt and Gemma hugged their father. Did it take a national disaster to bring them closer together? She guessed it did. When other families had been torn apart in the crisis of the Birds, now the five of them were one and it felt good.
“Thank god you’re all okay,” said Harry. He tried to sit up but then he winced and leaned back against the pillow.
“Try not to move.” Ellen said.
He inspected his arm. “How?”
“You know that old bag of plaster I’ve been asking you to throw out, for years?”
He chuckled. “I knew you’d find a way for me to get that job done.”
They all laughed, but the moment was lost when Harry said, “Where’s Melanie?”
Harry couldn’t believe it. After the past couple of days in hell, he’d just found heaven. They were all okay. Thank God. They’d had a reunion and it felt good, but there were still things to do. Most of all he needed to check if Melanie was okay.
“I have to see if she’s all right,” he said as he shuffled off the bed. He held his cast close to his chest. His arm was painful, but it didn’t feel as bad as it had earlier. He had Dolly to thank. She would have been the one who had taken care of him.
While the kids left the room, Ellen touched his shoulder and handed him a clean t-shirt. “Melanie’s asleep in Molly’s bed. She’s okay, but she’s clearly been disturbed by the whole thing.” Ellen helped him with the t-shirt. “What happened to her?”
He winced as he carefully put his cast through one armhole of the shirt. “It was terrible, El. She was caught up in the cottage with all the birds. They attacked her. We barely got her out alive.”
“Was it bad down there?”
“More than I can say.” He thought about the journey they’d had. It all happened in the space of thirty-six hours. “I can’t even believe we got back here alive.”
“Your friends said you were quite the hero.”
“Me?” He shook his head. “No, not me, I was a coward. Terrified. The rest of them kept me going. Bill and Dolly are quite a force to be reckoned with.”
She tugged the t-shirt down over his stomach. “I think we should get out of here as soon as possible. Go underground. As they advised,” Ellen said.
He nodded. “Our place?”
“Yes. I think so, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
When Harry came up the stairs, Bill felt relieved that his new friend looked better than he’d looked a couple of hours before. “You gave us a bit of a turn there,” Bill said, as they shook hands.
Dolly and Gladys stepped up to him and kissed him on the cheek. Harry was touched by the gesture. “I want to thank you for getting us all back here. Melanie and I wouldn’t have made it on our own. I’ll be forever in your debt.”
“And us in yours, my friend,” said Bill.
Harry saw Corporal Baines eating from a can of baked beans with a spoon.
“I can heat that up,” said Ellen. “I’ve got a barbecue.”
He ignored her and carried on eating.
Bill had already got to know the professor and Mark Shark, so he introduced them to Harry. They shook hands.
“Why don’t we all take a seat and decide what we’re going to do,” Harry announced.
Bill had just discussed their next step with Dolly and Gladys. Dolly was keen for them to make their way to her sisters in Portishead first thing in the morning. “She’s got a lovely house,” she said. Dolly wasn’t thinking straight. Bill couldn’t get through to her, to convince her that going to her sister’s wouldn’t be a wise move. He secretly wondered if her sister was even alive at that stage. It was bad around the coastline.
Harry began. “We know a place underground. It’s a disused funicular railway station under the gorge called The Clifton Rocks Railway. It used to be a secret transmission base for the BBC during World War one, but it’s been closed since then.” He touched Ellen’s arm. “We got in there once, many years ago. Nearly got us arrested for trespassing.” Ellen smiled and looked to the floor. “I have no idea what it will be like inside right now, but I think it would be a good place to wait things out. Just until they kill the birds. We could easily break in and I can’t imagine anyone accusing us of trespassing anymore.”
“Is there any need?” asked Dolly.
“What?”
“Well, they’ll be gone by morning, won’t they?”
“Those birds are here to stay,” Corporal Baines said.
Everyone began talking at the same time. Everyone had an opinion.
“Wait,” Ellen said. She spoke directly to Dolly. “The government is going to deploy gas to kill the birds. It said so on the radio.”
“Yes, we heard that too,” Bill said as he looked at the others. “We’ve got until midday tomorrow to find a secure place underground. That’s what they said.”
“Won’t happen,” the soldier murmured.
“What?”
Everyone turned to watch him licking the spoon. “They just said that to get everyone to go underground. There’s no such thing as a gas that can kill birds and not harm humans. I mean how would they even deploy it? Besides, everyone’s dead.”
Bill stood up as everyone started talking at once. They all needed to calm down. “That might be so, but I don’t think you know much more than we do,” he said to Baines. “And since we don’t know for sure that they won’t deploy the gas, we should go underground for safety’s sake.”
“I’m telling you, it won’t happen.”
“Stop saying that,” Ellen shouted at the soldier.
“Look, we’ve all got to stay calm and think strategically,” Harry said. “I think we need to stock up the truck with supplies since we won’t know how long we’ll be down there.”
Everyone murmured their agreement. It was a good idea. They should start immediately, and everyone should help, even the children.
“What if the birds attack again?” Dolly said as they stood up.
“We’ll worry about it when it happens.” Bill answered.
“If it happens, Bill Hock,” said Dolly, taking the final word.
Chapter 59
By midnight, they had loaded the truck half full. The space towards the back was for the people, sixteen now. As the men went in and out of the front entrance, with some of the older children helping, they noticed a few birds hanging around, prancing about on the driveway. Harry wondered if the phenomenon had stopped. The birds were dumb, they didn’t deserve his attention, but what he really wanted to do was kick them and send them flying off his property. But he daren’t. He just needed to ignore them.
They loaded the truck with all the mattresses they could find; duvets; pillows; warm coats…the barbecue; cooking stuff; boxes of tinned and packet foods; torches; candles; bottles of water…and anything else they could find that would help to survive a few days underground.
Harry had found some skiing masks, only two, from the days when he and Ellen had taken a trip to Switzerland without the kids. He got the idea from Matt who had gathered their swimming goggles together. Eye protection, he called it.
The padded skiing jackets came out too. There were only two, but Matt said they’d be good protection against the birds. Harry was surprised at his son’s survival instincts. Matt said, he got all his ideas from the games he played on his X-box.
Those items were piled up next to the door, ready to go to the truck. From the shed, Harry brought in a chainsaw, a spade and some small garden tools, a drill and other items that may be useful. From her room, Molly brought board games, a teddy bear and her lovebirds.
There had been a big argument over it. Some said they shouldn’t go with them, others said it didn’t matter one way or another, until finally, Corporal Baines took the cage off Molly, and released them outside. When the lovebirds flew away, Molly pounded her fists against his body. "I hate you," she cried, "I hate you." Then she ran into her mother’s arms and Ellen cried with her.
Bill was becoming more and more anxious as each hour passed. They had to get out of there before sun-up if they were going to use the darkness as cover. He looked at his watch. It was three-thirty am. Soon, they would make their way in the truck down to the disused railway station Harry had mentioned. They still had a few items to pack.
Ellen took Gladys, Dolly and Melanie under her protective wing. She supplied them with coats and underwear and other clothes, to keep them warm over the coming days. She gave Gladys a pair of soft slippers and when she put her weary feet into them, Gladys sighed.
Lucy bonded with Molly. Toby bonded with Tom. The kids were now in pairs, just like the lovebirds.
When Corporal Baines released the captured birds into the sky and poor little Molly had watched them fly away, Bill’s heart broke for her, until rage boiled to the surface, making him want to punch the soldier to the ground. Bill wasn’t a violent man, but at that moment, he could have easily killed a man.
They still had the cat, which Lucy carried in her backpack as if she'd never let him go. It was no trouble, so they allowed her to keep it. She kept it well hidden from Corporal Baines.