A gray cloud grows closer, coming from nowhere.
Birds. It’s an army of birds.
The noise of what has to be thousands and thousands of approaching seagulls slowly begins to reach our ears.
A few people quickly start packing their stuff. Others simply take off for the boardwalk.
I look back to the birds down the beach, and I swear the remaining seagulls are trying to pull a screaming child toward the water. The lifeguards and the kid’s family are trying to swat them away, but the birds are persistent and keep at it.
Screams from the water.
Turning back, I see the kamikaze birds falling out of the sky, diving toward the water and striking swimmers. Like huge lawn darts, they impale their targets. A few people go beneath the water, and a handful of gulls slam, beak first, into the now vacant spots. Seconds later, the birds emerge with strips of flesh hanging from their beaks. They float about nonchalantly, as if simply indulging in their normal lunchtime routine, and the swimmers don’t resurface.
The whole beach charges for the street. I grab Doug.
Doug is crying, his eyes wide and fixed on the invading army. He squeezes me as hard as he can, and I can feel his terror. I take off with the crowd, part of my brain trying to convince me that this isn’t real. That I’m dreaming. A smaller part of my brain even ridicules me for running from a bunch of birds. But there are far more than “a bunch,” and the scene is so extraordinary that to not react in such a way would be foolish. That’s what a different part of my brain is saying to the other one, and I’m getting confused. I decide to switch off the brain and to just trust my instincts.
And then it happens. We all knew it would. Maybe not with our intellect, as if we could actually calculate the probability of such an incident, but with that voice inside that lets you know that something bad is about to happen. And by “bad” I don’t mean having thousands of birds crap all over you. Sure, that might send people seeking cover under their umbrellas, but it certainly wouldn’t make everyone stampede off the beach like a herd of demon-possessed swine. No, as soon as the eerie fleet appeared, we all knew something was wrong, and it only took a couple kamikaze birds striking swimmers to confirm our fears. We were being attacked. As ludicrous as it seemed, and whether anyone else knew about the strange seagull behavior this week or not, we all knew what was coming.
The scavengers descend on the fleeing mass. A woman beside me, her shoulder brushing mine, has two gulls in her hair, thrashing with their talons, stabbing her with their beaks. She falls, shouting. I want to help, but Doug is my main concern, my first and foremost responsibility. Stopping to help her would put him in danger, something I’m just not willing to do, no matter how sick it makes me feel. I keep going.
The sun is blotted out by the fleet of seagulls filling the sky like enemy bombers, their black-tipped wings outstretched, their red eyes searching for targets. I think I’ve fallen into a Stephen King novel.
We stumble to the boardwalk, casualties falling down all around us, the birds soaring like missiles through our ranks, and I pray that my son isn’t the next target. We’re like a herd of stampeding buffalo, squeezing through the railings that try to corral us up onto the wooded slats of the boardwalk. Others, further down where the boardwalk is sitting higher than the sand, are trying to climb the pillars and the cross bracings. I see two people slip, fall, and disappear beneath the pressing crowd. I almost lose my own footing twice when I’m bumped and pushed from behind. I cannot fall. I need to get to Sam. It’s only a few blocks. I can make it.
Doug is crying, and I realize that I’m repeating, “It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay…”
We’re up over the boardwalk, hopping the railing and dropping down to the street. Others behind us get pinned against the railing by the wave of human flesh pressing against them, clawing their way over them as if they were dead bodies draped over barbed-wire on the battlefield of some strange fiction.
A seagull plummets right into the windshield of a coming car, and the driver reacts by swerving into the crowd of people that is just now spilling off the boardwalk and into the street. I can’t tell if anyone was run over or not. If so, no one seems to be concerned about it. Other cars are forced to stop, and people are flocking toward them, banging on their windows and begging to be let in.
Most of the birds have descended from their lofty heights, no longer high in the sky but pecking and slashing at close range. The scene is absurd, frantic faces running from endless, flapping wings. Blood is spraying everywhere; the screams are unbearable. This can’t be happening.
People crowd into the few stores and restaurants that are within reach, but seagulls crash through the windows, chasing down their prey. A look down Beach Street reveals a thousand beachgoers sprinting down the street and heading for their rental homes. It looks like a marathon. Only with blood and screaming children. A bird snaps at my head, and I cradle Doug like I’m a running back and he’s a football the defense is trying to strip from me. The gull goes after the person next to me instead, taking a chunk of flesh from the back of his neck. I make it to the other side of the street, to the sidewalk.
I break away from the crowd as everyone heads toward their own street or hotel. There’s no one ahead of me, just a concrete path to Samantha and the safety of four walls and a roof. Fear distracts me from my burning lungs and aching arms. Three more blocks. Come on.
A few seagulls circle in the sky like hawks, but I can tell by the volume of bird shrieks behind me that most of the action is still taking place along the boardwalk.
A car flies past us. I can hear sirens in the distance. Help is coming.
I make it to the house and run up the steps. I push open the door and put Doug down, patting his butt and urging him inside. I then look down the street, back toward the beach, and though the porch obstructs my view of the beach, I can see that the sky is still swarming with birds. I want to leave. Now. Before things get out of hand. Yeah, Tony’s theory has left its mark on me, and I don’t want any part of martial law once people start coughing up blood and breaking out in strange rashes. I shut the door, wondering if the birds will stay by the beach, content to feast on those trampled to death or bleeding. I don’t plan on being here to find out, though. I tell Doug to stop crying, that it’s going to be okay. I ask him to start packing his stuff while I go check on Samantha.
“We’re safe in here,” I tell him, and I hope I’m right. The way the birds crashed through windshields and storefronts though…
I run up the stairs, calling for Sam.
There’s no answer.
I burst into the bedroom, and she’s not there. The bed is empty. I run around, not sure I want her to be on the floor or not, but she’s not. I quickly make my way through all the other rooms and find no trace of her. I pat my pockets for my phone, wondering if she tried calling while all hell was breaking loose on the beach. A text.
ON MY WAY. FEEL TERRIBLE BUT MISS U2.
“No, no, no!” I go into Doug’s room and grab him. “Sorry, buddy. We’ll get your stuff later. We gotta find Mom.”
“Where is she?”
I take the time to kneel before him, mustering all the calmness I can in order to convey a sense of control I clearly don’t have. “I’m not sure. Do you think you can help me look for her?”
He nods, his eyes still swollen. “She at beach?”
I hope not. “I don’t think so.”
I carry him down the stairs and grab the keys. I don’t bother locking the door behind me, and I buckle Doug in the car seat as fast as I can. As I open the driver’s side door to get in, a loud squawk makes me jump. Turning my head, I see a seagull walking across the street, coming toward me, its scrawny legs moving fast. Then it stops, tilts its head, looks around. It walks some more, this time to its right. It stops, looks at me. Walks some more.
I don’t have time for this. I slam the door and turn the key. Backing out of my treasured spot, I maneuver t
he car and run over the seagull. The Honda bounces, and I get a sick pleasure from the jet stream of blood that squirts across the street in my side view. I throw the car in drive and take off toward Beach Avenue, keeping an eye on the sidewalks. “Look for Mommy, okay?” I’m peering over the steering wheel, praying that I see her crouched behind a telephone pole or something.
A bare-chested man with an inner tube around his waist goes sprinting down the sidewalk past us. I turn my head after him, but a sudden bang makes me whip my head around, and I find another man leaning against the hood. Half his face is missing, and his remaining eye is staring at me. At least he has a shirt on.
Doug screams.
I pull past the guy, and I track him with my eyes, watching him wander the street aimlessly through the rearview. “It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay.”
An ambulance goes screaming by on the next street over. The sky above the beach is still covered with a dark cloud of circling birds, like vultures coming from all over to feast on the battlefields of Armageddon.
Beach Avenue is inaccessible. Police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks are scattered amongst crashed vehicles and the injured. It’s chaos, family members searching for family members while the birds continue to swoop down. Firefighters are using fire hoses to provide cover, and it seems to be working somewhat. I turn down a side street, not willing to get stuck in the madness. Another police car shoots by ahead of me. I’m looking left and right for any sign of Samantha while blindly hitting redial on the cell over and over again. It goes to voicemail every time. “Come on, Sam,” I whisper. The shock is beginning to thin as the gravity of the situation sinks in.
Helicopters overhead. Black ones. Military, I think.
As I cross over the next street, I steal a glance across Beach to the boardwalk. The insanity has consumed it for blocks. Then I hear the gunshots. I think they’re coming from the beach, and when I reach the next cross street, I can make out police cars on the beach, officers firing shotguns up into the air at the swarming birds. They’re falling out of the sky in threes and fours. Lifeguards and medics are running beneath the cover fire and dragging the injured into the safety of nearby vehicles. It reminds me of the old 1953 War of the Worlds movie.
The passing houses are back to obstructing my view. I don’t know where to go. I doubt Sam came this way once all the running started. I wonder if I might have passed her in my escape from the beach. The thought sickens me. She can’t be back there. She just can’t.
I make a right onto the next street and travel away from the beach until I get to the next one and make another right, heading back toward the house. A crowd of people runs across the street at the next intersection, and I have to slam on the breaks. They’re looking up into the air behind them. Right behind them.
I lean over the steering wheel and crane my neck, looking up into the sky. Sure enough, the seagulls have abandoned their swirling position over the beach and boardwalk, and now thousands of small shadows are skimming across the street, the roofs, parked cars… The birds flee the guns and fire hoses and seem to be seeking shelter in town. Ignoring the crowd, they disappear, thousands and thousands of them, as if dissolving right into the houses and trees. I roll down the windows, suddenly realizing that I’m sweating. I never turned the air on. I check on Douglas, and I’m relieved that he’s still conscious. It has to be almost a hundred degrees in here.
We sit still at the intersection, windows down, and I watch the last of the avian army vanish. Only they don’t vanish back to whatever island they’d been spawned on. Now they are here among us. Hiding on our roofs, in our trees. Waiting.
The silence is even more disturbing than the obnoxious gull-shrieking that was, just moments ago, echoing throughout the neighborhood. The sirens are still sounding, and I can hear the muffled screams and shouts coming from the beach some three or four blocks away, but everything else seems still. I see faces appearing behind curtains in the windows across from us.
I press on the gas and move the car into the intersection, anxious to find my wife. Now that the birds have left the boardwalk, I’ll take Doug with me to Beach Avenue. I don’t want to take him, don’t want him to see the carnage, but I have little choice.
Making a right, I get as close to the boardwalk as I can before leaving the Pilot in the middle of the street. There are no parking spots, and I’m not about to try finding one. All I want to do is get my son the hell out of New Jersey, but I can’t leave without Samantha.
I get out of the car, get Doug out of the car seat, and move against the crowd that is just now starting to follow the seagulls into town. They look dazed, scared, as if unable to understand what had happened. I’ve seen the look before. On the news, after a mass shooting or a bombing, the people staring into space, unable to comprehend…
I step onto Beach and maneuver around an ambulance, trying to avoid a severed leg lying nearby. I press Doug’s face into my shoulder, hoping he doesn’t see it. What kind of seagulls are these?
My eyes frantically search the scene, passing from one face to the next. The crowd is large, the entire beach crammed into the street, looking for loved ones, trying to find out where to go, how to help, what to do… The authorities don’t seem to know themselves. But as I pass close to one, I hear something over a radio that stops my heart. I can’t make out the whole thing, but I pick out a few words, and it’s all I need. “Quarantine,” “symptoms,” “nobody leaves,” and “army.”
This can’t be happening.
Crossing through the madness, I take the steps up to the boardwalk and stand for a moment, looking up and down the street. If Samantha is out there somewhere, it could take me hours to find her. I turn my attention back to the beach. It’s mostly empty in both directions. There are officers poking dead birds with their shotguns, there are sheets being pulled over bloody corpses, and there are people crying.
The helicopters are just hovering out over the water, observing.
I recognize one of the cops from yesterday and jog over to him. He looks up from the dead bird at his feet. There’s a stream of blood flowing from his left temple, where a two-inch gash glistens in the sun.
“Look at that,” he mumbles, pointing with the shotgun. There are spent shells all over the beach.
I follow his gaze to the dead bird. Half its chest is missing, but inside the gore is something…metallic. I squint down at it. “I don’t understand.”
“You and me both.” He looks up at the helicopters. “I think you should get out of here.”
I’m touched that this officer has my wellbeing in mind, but I shake my head. “I have to find my wife.”
He looks down at Douglas, then looks into the street. “They’re going to close this place down.”
“How long?”
“An hour.”
That’s not enough time.
“I can’t leave her.”
He looks sad, like the universe just crapped all over him and there was nothing he could do about it.
“We’re dreaming, right?” I ask, not knowing what else to say.
“Some weird-ass dream if we are.”
Before I leave him to continue my search, I take a closer look at the gull. I don’t know what I’m looking at, but I’m pretty sure there’s no animal in God’s creation that comes with a metal skeleton. “An experiment?” The word slips out of my mouth before I have time to analyze it, probably as a result of all those sci-fi movies.
“I don’t know.” He looks up to the helicopters. “But I think they do.”
My mind reels. What does that mean? But the possibilities seem endless.
He looks me in the eye. “Ten minutes, and then you should leave.” His eyes drift down to Douglas, who has his arms wrapped around my leg. “For him.”
I nod, though my heart is singing a different song.
My phone rings.
“Good luck,” and the officer walks away, heading to a group of people waving for his attention.
The phone d
isplays Samantha’s face, and I’m overwhelmed with relief. “Honey…”
“Hello?” an unfamiliar voice answers.
“Who is this?”
“Mary. Who’s this?”
“Where did you get that phone?”
“I found it on the boardwalk.”
“When?”
“Right after the birds…”
“Where are you now?” The relief I felt when seeing Sam’s face has now been replaced by a sense of dread.
“I’m in my house.”
“Where exactly did you find it?”
“Between Congress and Perry. I looked around for…you know, whoever dropped it, but… It was ringing. That’s why I noticed it. I couldn’t answer it in time, though.”
I’m silent, my free hand massaging my forehead.
“Is it your—”
“My wife.”
Now she’s silent.
“Where are you?” I ask.
“My house is on Washington, near Perry.”
“I’ll be right there.” I hang up, take Doug’s hand. “A lady found Mommy’s phone. We’re goin’ to go get it, okay?”
“Why Mommy lose her phone?” he asks, worried.
I’m worried, too. I’m not sure why I need her phone, but I can’t just leave it. Washington and Perry isn’t that far.
I sweep Doug back into my sore arms and tell him to hold on. He throws his arms around my neck and squeezes tight. “I want you to play a game with me.”
“What game?”
“I want you to close your eyes and try really hard to imagine where Mommy’s hiding. Don’t open your eyes until I say, or the game won’t work, okay?”
He nods and squeezes his tiny eyes closed.
Unable to see the gore the birds left behind, I move as quickly as I can, approaching one body after another, stopping only to take a quick peek into rescue vehicles. If she dropped her phone on the boardwalk and was crushed, this is where I would find her body. But I don’t see her, alive or dead.
Seagull Summer Page 5