Black Bird

by Greg Enslen

  The shot caught him by surprise, spinning him around.

  David was only twenty feet away, both guns up and out, and he was propped on the metal walking stick. He was screened partially by a little tree but that really shouldn’t have mattered - no, the guy was out of it for a moment, confused by the map David had drawn and confused by the leftover paint he’d dumped in the fountain.

  Julie had told him how sick this guy was, and about some of the things he had done, and at the time it had sickened him. All that talk about blood and missing parts had made him want to vomit, but now he was glad he had read the files and remembered them. He had always been really good with maps, something related to his interest in drafting and architecture, and remembering the spots on the map hadn’t been very difficult. And they weren’t really that accurate - close enough to be a shock, close enough to throw the guy off for a long moment.

  That was the distraction David had needed.

  More birds flew into the mall, escaping the storm. Some part of David's mind noted that they were coming inside and now the gazebo was almost covered with birds. Others were flapping around loudly inside the mall, squawking and cawing.

  The bullet had caught Jack from behind, high in the shoulder, and even at that distance it was like a hard punch, spinning him around and knocking him down. He was near the stream, about ten feet from where the stream emptied over a small waterfall, downhill from the gazebo.

  He fell hard to the ground and rolled into the stream, face up, half of his body was submerged.

  David wasn’t sure what to do next.

  The guy was down, but he wasn’t dead. Could he just walk up and shoot the guy? He thought so - the guy, this Jack Terrington (sounded like a made up name to David) had killed his father and his Aunt and a lot of other people. And if David needed any other reason to shoot, all he had to do was remember Bethany laying back there on the floor of that clothing store dying, her body, a body he had caressed a hundred times, surrounded by a dark pool of her own blood.

  No, he wouldn’t have a problem with killing the guy. Jack had pushed David over his line, and now David just wanted his old life back.

  Nothing more, but nothing less.

  The rain fell heavily around David as he hobbled up to the edge of the stream and pointed one of the guns at the man’s face.

  Jack looked up at him and smiled.

  Water bubbled from his mouth. “I hid the keys, kid. You kill me, and you’ll never find them in time to save her.”

  David could see only about half of the guy - the other half was covered with murky red water. This hadn’t been part of the plan. He had expected the guy to fake getting hurt, but he could see the man’s blood welling out of his shoulder and joining the stream of crimson already in the water. Couldn’t fake that, and a wound like that had to hurt, a lot.

  But hiding the keys - was he just trying to buy some more time?

  “You think you’re pretty clever, don’t you,” Jack asked David, propping himself up on one arm. The bad shoulder came up into the air and David could see the ragged hole he had made.

  “But you’ve gotta tell me. How did you know about all of that?” Jack asked, nodding at the gazebo.

  David glanced up and away for a moment, but that was all it took. As soon as his eyes were off of Jack, the man’s hand came up out of the water, pointed the revolver at the boy, and pulled the trigger.

  Jack shot David in his broken leg.

  David collapsed to the ground, screaming.

  If the leg had hurt before, now it was burning with a pain he couldn’t ever explain to anyone else, if he lived to try. The blood poured from the bullet wound now, and he could easily feel the bones inside his leg grinding together.

  He rolled off to the side and tried to get a handle on the pain, but it was just too much. It was like a hurricane whipping around him, the screaming pain keening in his ears, a siren louder than anything he had ever heard before. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t see, all he could do was hear the roaring in his mind. The leg was like a separate entity now, an appendage made solely of burning fire, still attached to him.

  In a moment the pain went from bad to worse.

  A second bullet tore into his leg, shredding most of the bone above his knee, and the leg rested on the bloody grass at a crazy angle, an angle the bones were never designed to make.

  The pain washed over David again, worse by far than before, and some part of his mind shut down.

  He thought he was going to pass out, and instead he concentrated on the rain falling onto his face. The rain falling on him, and the birds he could see, flitting around inside the mall. He concentrated on feeling the coolness of the rain on his skin and blocked everything else out.

  The water was cold and wet and, after a moment, the pain retreated momentarily to a different part of him. He propped one elbow underneath him, then the other, shoving himself painfully into a sitting position. Some other part of his mind was in control now. He saw the rain and the birds on the gazebo and the man before him and the volcano of blood - it was all so clear, suddenly. The pain was trapped behind a hastily erected mental wall, but David thought he could keep his mind clear for a few more moments.

  Jack couldn’t believe it. He had shot the kid again in the injured area just to aggravate the pain. He’d though about shooting the leg lower, down by the calf, but the thigh was where it had been broken, and that was the best possible place. The more pain

  washing over him like the ocean

  the better. But now the kid was sitting up, rising up from his prone position like a ghost.

  Jack saw that the kid's pain had gone away.

  “What are you doing, kid?”

  he's not hurting why isn't he hurting

  As Jack raised the gun and pointed it at the boy’s face to finish the job, he cursed under his breath. This kid was a tough one. Jack had wanted to draw this out a little longer, make it more interesting, but the kid was starting to annoy him.

  Faking Jack out with that map

  all those people he had killed all that spilt blood all those trophies

  had been smart.

  Jack glanced at the gazebo, and saw there were several birds standing on the scrawled map of the country, picking at the wet paint. Crazily, one of them seemed to be scratching at the map

  that's our map

  and the bird's beak came up and Jack saw that the tip of it was red with paint.

  David cleared his throat, spitting blood and rainwater from his mouth.

  “Before you shoot me, ask your question.”

  The boy was sitting up now, a hand touching his right leg gingerly, exploring the wounds and pressing, trying to slow the blood that pumped from the two ragged holes high on the thigh.

  A part of Jack’s mind offered that if the boy didn’t get that bleeding stopped soon, he might die, and another part of Jack’s mind told the first part to shut up, you idiot, of course he’s going to die.

  He’s going to die from gunshot to the brain in about four seconds.

  question

  what question

  He was curious about how the kid had known about all the murders over the years, but Jack didn’t think that was what the kid meant.

  It seemed bigger than that, more important.

  was there something here that he was missing

  Behind the kid, Jack saw a group of dark birds flit in front of the volcano, the fountain of blood splashing down into the river behind them. One bird splashed into the water of the red river.

  He lowered the gun just a little.

  “What question do you want me to ask you? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Jack looked at the kid and waited for an answer, but nothing came. Jack decided the kid was just stalling and raised the gun, his finger starting to squeeze the trigger.

  David laughed, sounding insane, coming from a person who had to be in such intense pain that he would pass out at any moment.

  “Al
l these years," David asked, smiling. "All these years, and you don’t want your answer?”

  Both of the boy’s hands were on his right leg now, one by the knee and one lower. It looked like he was trying to turn the leg around to the correct angle – now, it was just flopped over on its side, a sickening angle.

  The boy pushed up on the knee, rolling the leg over to match the vertical position of the other leg, and the right foot now pointed straight up like the other foot. That had to hurt, but the kid didn’t even seem to notice - he was just staring at Jack and blinking the rain out of his eyes.

  “What?” Now Jack was frustrated.

  What question?

  stalling

  David leaned forward, and one hand touched his bloody pant leg just below the knee.

  “I thought all of this killing was for a reason. All those years, crossing the country and killing people and taking parts of them with you. And never getting caught. Was it all for a reason, or were you just wandering around, looking for meaning? Weren’t you looking for something? Searching…for the answer to some important question?”

  The boy leaned forward a little more and his hands stopped moving. He was looking up at Jack and, impossibly, the kid was smiling.

  “Don’t you wonder if I hated my father as much as you did? You came all the way back here because you hated him so much. Don’t you want to know if I hated him, too?”

  Jack nodded, the gun

  I hated him so much

  in his hand dipping a little. Yeah, he had always been looking for some meaning in what he did - he had covered the entire country trying to find his place, to find out why he was here and why he did what he did. But Jack was past all that - he understood that he was simply here to weed out the weakest - he was like a gardener, pruning, making mankind stronger and better.

  A bird darted between them, then flitted away.

  As for wondering if the kid had hated his father as much as Jack did? Well, that question was about to be moot.

  “Actually, I loved the guy.” David said, smiling. “Though I never met him. Thanks to you.”

  The kid’s pant leg wrinkled up a little as his hand moved on it

  that is strange

  and as Jack lifted the gun to shoot the kid in the face and end all of this stupid talking, the pant leg seemed to explode outward violently, the fabric shredding instantly.

  In the same moment, something hard smacked Jack squarely in the middle of his chest, something heavy and wet and dark. Suddenly his breathing became almost impossible. His chest felt light, like he could float away, and at the same time his arms felt like thick blocks of lead, too heavy to lift.

  The guns felt like they weighed a ton, and he let one go, the gun dropping away and falling to the wet ground between his boots.

  this is wrong very wrong

  Jack looked down and could see his heart. There was a gaping hole in his chest, and the leather jacket and the shirt he had been wearing and everything else was gone and now there was just this big blackened hole in the middle of his chest. He saw the points of some of his ribs, and he could see the glistening muscle of his heart, fist-sized and dark, as it pumped away.

  blood

  But blood ran from the hole in him, and he lifted his heavy arms and used both hands to try and hold himself in. There were things he recognized, parts of him that he had seen in so many other people and Jack stumbled backwards, away from the kid. There was so much blood. All he wanted to do was to try and back away from the pain. It hurt so much. Jack finally, for the first time, understood what real pain felt like.

  David spoke up as the man backed away, trying to hold his guts in.

  “No, I don’t hate him. My father was a hero.”

  His words barely registered with Jack, but some part of his mind heard them and hated them. Beaumont had been a chump - he had beaten the old man. But Jack had no time to think about ancient history - he was too busy trying to hold himself in. There was so much of him trying to get out, so many things that he never wanted to see...

  One of his rattlesnake-skin boots caught the edge of the concrete retaining wall surrounding the pond and Jack tipped over backwards, a victim of his own momentum, falling into the blood-colored water.

  Smoke and steam erupted from the surface of the water, and from where David was laying, still trying to work the gun out of his sock from where he had fired it, he could see sparks and flashes of light. The barrel of the little automatic still burned against the inside of his calf, and he finally worked the gun free and lay back on the soft, wet grass. In a moment, he passed out.

  Something landed on his chest.

  David slowly came to. He realized that there was something on him, walking around on his chest, and he came out of a hazy fog, blinking his eyes. The rain still fell onto him, and he blinked the water away and looked down at his chest.

  There was a black bird on him.

  It was on his chest and its feet and claws felt strange on his chest. There was almost no weight to the bird, but David could feel it anyway.

  He sat up slowly, painfully, and the bird hopped off and down onto the muddy grass, turning to look at him. It looked like the same black bird from the mountain turnout, but he couldn’t tell for sure - birds all looked the same to him. This one seemed to be favoring one leg a little like that black bird up in the Shenandoah’s had done.

  But it couldn’t be the same bird - that was impossible.

  David looked slowly around, and saw that he was surrounded by birds.

  He saw more of them coming in the gaping hole in the ceiling, coming in with the falling rain. They came in groups and alone and floating down to settle on the grass or the trees or the tiled floor of the mall. The covered the roof of the gazebo and sat perched on the mall benches and trash receptacles.

  David sat up, and at that the birds quieted.

  Scores of them, maybe a hundred, maybe two hundred – he couldn’t tell. They littered the ground around him, all keeping a distance, except for the black bird, which had hopped about five feet away and stopped.

  Now, it was staring at him, watching him as he tried to move.

  He smelled something horrible, like something was cooking on the stove and had been left on too long. He hadn’t noticed it because of the birds.

  David struggled to remove his belt, roughly tying it tight around the top of his thigh to slow the bleeding. He took off his jacket and wrapped it around the thigh, his jacket slowly turning a bright burgundy color.

  David crawled painfully for the collection pool, the birds quietly parting to make a narrow path to let him through. He crawled across the muddy grass and onto the white tile of the mall’s floor. When he finally got to the pool, he pulled himself up and peeked over the edge, careful not to touch the water.

  Jack Terrington was in there, floating on the steaming surface of what looked like a lake of blood.

  The red water moved around him, and smoke and steam came off the man, stinking of overcooked meat. He couldn’t see the body of the man very well, but he looked to be dead. Very dead.

  David crawled over to the electrical wire, pulled it out of the water, and yanked on it to pull the plug at the other end of it from the outlet twenty feet away, tugging it free. The outlet sparked and caught fire as he yanked the cord loose – in moments, a small river of flames was running up the wall towards the ceiling, but he didn’t care. He was only worried about getting to the body.

  David leaned on the edge of the collection pond, the birds already there making a wide hole for him.

  He looped the wire into a crude circle and painfully threw it. On the fourth try he caught one of Jack’s boots and pulled, tugging the body over the edge of the pool.

  What was drawing the birds here, he wondered. What did they want?

  He got a hand on Jack and pulled him to the edge.

  The body was still warm. He reached over the water and pulled the second gun from the man’s hand, and there was no resistance excep
t for the fact that the metal of the gun had cooked into the man’s scarred palm and it took David a moment of tugging to tear the gun away from the skin, ripping away some of the flesh.

  The rest of the body was still warm, and David expected the man to come alive at any moment, grabbing David and pulling him into the blackish water like something out of a bad movie.

  But the body just floated, dead.

  The keys were in his leather jacket pocket, and as he pulled them out, David exhaled a deep breath that he hadn’t even realized he had been holding. If the keys hadn’t been there, or if Jack really had hidden them, then Bethany was dead. In the condition he was in, it would be a miracle if he could still save her at all.

  As David dug in the man’s pocket something pricked his finger, and he pulled it out, too. It was a Sheriff’s star, and on the front of it David could read in very faded letters the words “Liberty Police Department.”

  It was his father’s star.

  David remembered Norma crying as she had told the part of the story of that rainy night so long ago. She was dead now, just like his father.

  As the rain fell heavy through the broken ceiling onto David and the collection pond and the flock of orphaned birds, he looked down at the rusty old star. He looked over at the body floating on the steaming red water, and pushed it away, sending it floating back into the middle of the brackish lake.

  And then David smiled and pinned the rusty, precious star to the front of his dirty shirt.

  David glanced up at the birds.

  They were perched on the metal strips and the broken angles of glass above the tree-lined red of the collection pond, seemingly ignoring the wind and rain that raged outside. There were gulls and crows and ravens and sparrows, robins and blackbirds and pigeons and a dozen more kinds, all around him.

  There were more coming in. A vulture flapped in the hole and settled on top of the gazebo. More were on the wet grass around the stream, and quickly the sound of them grew to a shrieking symphony. A hundred birds or two hundred had found their way into this place, landing where they could or circling lazily above. The ragged hole above was lined with more, all manner of winged creatures, and their shrieking grew so loud that it matched and finally surpassed the howling of the storm outside.