Bird Box (20 page)

No, it’s not. Drive slow. The streets are empty. What’s the worst that can happen?

Malorie, rowing, remembers a definitive moment at the bathroom mirror. She’d seen other faces in the glass. Olympia. Tom. Shannon. All of them were pleading, telling her to leave the house, to do
something
more for the further safety of these kids. She was going to have to take a risk on her own. Tom and Jules weren’t here to do it for her.

Tom’s voice back then. Always Tom’s voice. In her head. In the room. In the mirror.

Make a bumper around Cheryl’s Wagoneer. Paint the windows black. Don’t worry about what you run into. Just go. Drive five, six miles an hour. You have babies in the house now, Malorie. You have to know if something is out there. If something is near. The microphones will let you know that
.

Leaving the bathroom, she went to the kitchen. There she studied the map Felix, Jules, and Tom once used to plan a route to Tom’s house on foot. Their notes were still on it. Felix’s calculations. Using the scale, she made her own.

She wanted Tom’s advanced alarm system. She needed it. Yet, despite her newfound determination, she still didn’t know where to go.

Late one evening, while the babies slept, she sat at the kitchen table and tried to remember her very first drive to the house. It had been less than a year ago. Back then, her mind was on the address from the ad. But what did she pass along the way?

She tried to remember.

A Laundromat
.

That’s good. What else?

Storefronts were empty. It looked like a ghost town and you were worried the people who placed the ad might no longer be there. You thought they’d either gone mad or packed up the car and driven far
away
.

Yes, all right. What else?

A bakery
.

Good. What else?

What else?

Yes
.

A bar
.

Good. What did the marquee boast?

I don’t know. That’s a ridiculous question!

You don’t remember the sadness you felt at the name of . . . the name of
. . .

Of what?

The name of the band?

The band?

You read the name of a band slated to perform on a date already two weeks past. What was it?

I’ll never remember the name of the band
.

Right, but the feeling?

I don’t remember
.

Yes, you do. The feeling
.

I was sad. I was scared
.

What’d they do there?

What?

At the bar. What’d they do there?

I don’t know. They drank. They ate
.

Yes. What else?

They danced?

They danced
.

Yes
.

And?

And what?

How did they dance?

I don’t know
.

What did they dance to?

They danced to music. They danced to the band
.

Malorie brought a hand to her forehead and smiled.

Right. They danced to the band
.

And the band needed microphones. The band needed amplifiers.

Tom’s ideas lingered in the house like ghosts.

Just like we did it
, Tom might say.
Just like the time Jules and I took a walk around the block. You weren’t able to partake in a lot of those activities, Malorie, but you can now. Jules and I rounded up dogs and later used them to walk to my house. Think about that, Malorie. It all kind of happened in a row, each step allowed the next step to happen. All because we weren’t stagnant. We took risks. Now you’ve got to do the same. Paint the windshield black
.

Don had laughed when Tom suggested driving blind.

But it’s exactly what she did.

Victor,
he
would help her. Jules once refused to let him be used like that. But Malorie had two newborns in a room down the hall. The rules were different now. Her body still ached from the delivery. The muscles in her back were always tight. If she moved too quickly, it felt like her groin might snap. She got exhausted easily. She never had the rest a new mother deserves.

Victor
, she thought then,
he
will protect you
.

She painted the windshield black with the paint from the cellar. She taped socks and sweaters to the inside of the glass. Using wood glue found in the garage, and duct tape from the cellar, she fastened blankets and mattresses to the bumpers. All this in the street. All this blindfolded. All this while enduring the pain of being a new mother, punished, it seemed, with every movement of her body.

She would have to leave them. She would go on her own.

She would drive a quarter of a mile in the opposite direction from which she arrived. She’d turn left and go four miles. Then a right, and another two and a half. She’d have to search for the bar from there. She’d bring food for Victor. He would guide her back to the car, back to the food, when she needed him to.

Five or six miles an hour sounded reasonable. Safe enough.

But the first time she tried it, she discovered just how hard it would be.

Despite the precautions, driving without seeing was horrifying. The Wagoneer bounced violently as she ran things over she’d never be able to identify. Twenty times she struck the curb. Twice she hit poles. Once, a parked car. It was pure, horrible suspense. With every click of the odometer, she expected a collision, an injury. Tragedy. By the time she returned home, her nerves were shattered. She was empty-handed and unconvinced she had the mettle to try it again.

But she did.

She found the Laundromat on the seventh try. And because she remembered it from her first drive to the house, it gave her the courage to try again. Blindfolded and scared, she entered a boot store, a coffee shop, an ice-cream parlor, and a theater. She’d heard her shoes echoing off the marble floor of an office lobby. She’d knocked a shelf of greeting cards to the floor. Still, she failed to find the bar. Then, on the ninth afternoon, Malorie entered an unlocked wooden door and immediately knew she had arrived.

The smell of sour fruit, stale smoke, and beer was as welcome as any she’d ever known. Kneeling, she hugged Victor around the neck.

“We found it,” she said.

Her body was sore. Her mind ached. Her tongue was dry. She imagined her belly as a deflated, dead balloon.

But she was here.

She searched a long time for the wood of the bar. Banging into chairs, she knocked her elbow hard on a post. She tripped once, but a table saved her from falling to the floor. She spent a long time trying to understand equipment with her fingers. Was this the kitchen? Was this used to mix drinks? Victor tugged at her, playfully, and she turned, banging her stomach against something hard. It was the bar. Tying Victor’s leash to what she believed was a steel stool, Malorie stepped behind the bar and felt for the bottles. Every movement was a reminder of how recently she’d given birth. One by one she brought the bottles to her nose. Whiskey. Something peach. Something lemon. Vodka. Gin. And, finally, rum. Just like the housemates once tried to enjoy the night Olympia arrived.

It felt good in her hands. Like she’d waited a thousand years to hold it.

She carried it with her around the length of the bar. Finding the stool, she sat down, brought the bottle to her mouth, and drank.

The alcohol spread through her. And for a moment, it lessened the pain.

In her private darkness, she understood a creature could be sitting at the bar beside her. Possibly the place was full of them. Three per table. Watching her silently. Observing the broken, blindfolded woman and her Seeing Eye dog. But right then, for that second, she just didn’t care.

“Victor,” she said, “you want some? You need some?”

God, it felt good.

She drank again, remembering how wonderful an afternoon at a bar could be. Forget the babies, forget the house, forget everything.

“Victor, it’s good stuff.”

But the dog, she recognized, was preoccupied. He was tugging at the leash tied to the stool.

Malorie drank again. Then Victor whined.

“Victor? What is it?”

Victor was pulling harder on the leash. He was whining, not growling. Malorie listened to him. The dog sounded too anxious. She got up, untied him, and let him lead the way.

“Where are we going, Victor?”

She knew he was taking her back to where they came in, by the door they had entered. They banged into tables along the way. Victor’s feet slid on tiles and Malorie bashed her shin on a chair.

The smell was stronger here. The bar smell. And more.

“Victor?”

He’d stopped. Then he started scratching at something on the floor.

It’s a mouse
, Malorie thought.
There must be so many in here
.

She swept her shoe in an arc before it came up against something small and hard. Pulling Victor aside, she felt cautiously on the ground.

She thought of the babies and how they would die without her.

“What is it, Victor?”

It was a ring of some kind. It felt like steel. There was a small rope. Examining it blindfolded, Malorie understood what it was. She rose.

“It’s a cellar door, Victor.”

The dog was breathing hard.

“Let’s leave it alone. We need to get some things here.”

But Victor pulled again.

There could be people down there
, Malorie thought.
Hiding. Living down there. People who could help you raise the babies
.

“Hello!” she called. But there was no response.

Sweat dripped from under the blindfold. Victor’s nails dug at the wood. Malorie’s body felt like it might snap in half as she knelt and pulled the thing open.

The smell that came up choked her and Malorie felt the rum come back up as she vomited where she stood.

“Victor,” she said, heaving. “Something’s rotting down there.
Something
—”

Then she felt the true scorching sensation of fear. Not the kind that comes to a woman as she drives with a blackened windshield, but the sort of fear that hits her when she’s wearing a blindfold and suddenly knows there is someone else in the room.

She reached for the door, scared she might tumble into the cellar and meet with whatever was at the bottom. The stench was not old food. It was not bad booze.

“Victor!”

The dog was yanking her, hungry for the source of that smell.

“Victor!
Come on!
”

But he continued.

This is what a grave smells like
.
This is death
.

Quickly, in agony, Malorie pulled Victor out of the room and back into the bar, then searched for a post. She found one made of wood. She tied his leash to it, knelt, and held his face in her hands, begging him to calm down.

“We need to get back to the babies,” she told him. “You’ve
got
to calm down.”

But Malorie needed calming herself.

We never determined how animals are affected. We never found out
.

She turned back blindly toward the hall that led to the cellar.

“Victor,” she said, tears welling. “What did you see down there?”

The dog was still. He was breathing hard. Too hard.

“Victor?”

She rose and stepped away from him.

“Victor. I’m just stepping over here. I’m going to look for some microphones.”

A part of her started dying. It felt like she was the one going mad. She thought of Jules. Jules who loved this dog more than he loved himself.

This dog was her very last link to the housemates.

A torturous growl escaped him. It was a sound she’d never heard from him. Not from any dog on Earth.

“Victor. I’m sorry we came here. I’m so sorry.”

The dog moved violently and Malorie thought he’d broken free. The wood post splintered.

Victor barked.

Malorie, backing up, felt something, a riser of some kind, behind her tired knees.

“Victor, no.
Please
. I’m so sorry.”

The dog swung his body, knocking into a table.

“Oh God! VICTOR! Stop
growling
!
Stop! Please!
”

But Victor couldn’t stop.

Malorie felt along the carpeted riser behind her. She crawled onto it, afraid to turn her back on what Victor had seen. Huddled and shaking, she listened to the dog go mad. The sound of him pissing. The sound of his teeth snapping as he bit the empty air.

Malorie shrieked. She instinctively reached for a tool, a weapon, and found her hands gripping the steel of some kind of small post

Slowly, she rose, feeling along the length of the steel.

Victor bit the air. He snapped again. It sounded like his teeth were cracking.

At the top of the steel rod, Malorie’s fingers encircled a short, oblong object. At its end, she felt something like steel netting.

She gasped.

She was on the stage. And she was holding what she had come for. She was holding a microphone.

She heard Victor’s bone pop. His fur and flesh had ripped.

“
Victor!
”

She pocketed the microphone and dropped to her knees.

Kill him
, she thought.

But she couldn’t.

Manically, she searched the stage. Behind her, it sounded like Victor had chewed through his own leg.

Your body is broken. Victor is dying. But there are two babies in boxes at home. They need you, Malorie. They need you they need you they need you
.

Tears saturated and then spilled out through her blindfold. Her breath came in gasping heaves. On her knees, she followed a wire to a small square object at the far end of the stage. She discovered three more cords, leading to three more microphones.

Victor made a sound no dog should make. He sounded almost human in his despair. Malorie gathered everything she could.

The amplifiers, small enough to carry. The microphones. The cords. A stand.

“I’m sorry, Victor. I’m so sorry, Victor. I’m sorry.”