Bird Box (6 page)

M
alorie wakes in her new bedroom. It is dark. For one blessed moment, the last one she experiences, Malorie wakes with the idea that all of this news about creatures and madness was only some nightmare. Foggily, she remembers Riverbridge, Tom, Victor, the drive, but none of it becomes clear until, staring at the ceiling, she realizes that she’s never woken in this room before.

And Shannon is still dead.

Sitting up in bed slowly, she looks to the room’s one window. A black blanket is nailed into the wall, keeping her safe from the outside world. Beyond her feet, there is an old vanity. Its pink color is faded but the mirror looks clean. In it, she is paler than usual. Because of this, her black hair looks even blacker. At the base of the mirror are extra nails, screws, a hammer, and a wrench. Except for her bed, this is the extent of the furnishings.

Rising, she swings her feet over the mattress’s edge and sees, on the gray-carpeted floor, a second black blanket, folded neatly. It’s a spare, she thinks. Beside it is a small stack of books.

Facing the bedroom’s door, Malorie hears voices coming from downstairs. She does not know these people yet, and she can’t place who is speaking unless it’s Cheryl, the only woman, or Tom, whose voice will guide her for years.

When she stands up, the carpet is coarse and old beneath her feet. She crosses the bedroom and peers into the hall. She feels okay. Rested. She’s not dizzy anymore. Wearing the same clothes she passed out in the night before, Malorie makes her way down the stairs to the living room.

Just before she reaches the wooden floor, Jules passes, carrying a pile of clothes.

“Hi,” he says, nodding. Malorie watches as he walks to the bathroom down the hall. There, she hears him dunking the clothes in a bucket of water.

When she turns toward the kitchen, she sees Cheryl and Don at the sink. Malorie enters the kitchen as Don pulls a glass from a bucket. Cheryl hears her and turns around.

“You worried us last night,” she says. “Are you feeling better?”

Malorie, realizing now that she fainted the night before, turns a little red.

“Yes, I’m okay. Just a lot to take in.”

“It was like that for all of us,” Don says. “But you’ll get used to it. Soon, you’ll be saying we live a life of luxury.”

“Don’s a cynic,” Cheryl says good-naturedly.

“I’m really not,” Don says. “I love it here.”

Malorie jumps as Victor licks her hand. As she kneels to pet him, she hears music come from the dining room. She crosses the kitchen and peers inside. The room is empty, but the radio is on.

She looks back to Cheryl and Don at the sink. Beyond them is a cellar door. Malorie is about to ask about it when she hears Felix’s voice coming from the living room. He is reciting the home’s address.

“. . . Two seventy-three Shillingham . . . my name is Felix . . . we’re looking for anyone else who is alive . . . surviving . . .”

Malorie peeks her head into the living room. Felix is using the landline.

“He’s calling random phone numbers.”

Malorie jumps again, this time at the sound of Tom’s voice, who is now peering into the living room with her.

“We don’t have a phone book?” she asks.

“No. It’s a constant source of frustration for me.”

Felix is dialing another number. Tom, holding a piece of paper and pencil, asks, “Want to see the cellar with me?”

Malorie follows him through the kitchen.

“Are you going to take stock?” Don asks as Tom opens the cellar door.

“Yeah.”

“Let me know what the numbers are.”

“Sure.”

Tom enters first. Malorie follows him down wooden stairs. The floor of the cellar is made of dirt. In the darkness, she can smell and feel the earth beneath her bare feet.

The room is suddenly lit as Tom pulls the string on a lightbulb. Malorie is frightened by what she sees. It feels more like a warehouse than a cellar. Seemingly infinite wooden shelves are stocked with canned goods. From ceiling to dirt floor, the place resembles a bunker.

“George built all this,” Tom says, fanning a hand toward the woodwork. “He really was ahead of things.”

To the left, only partially lit by the light, Malorie sees a hanging, transparent tapestry. Behind it rest a washer and a dryer.

“It looks like a lot of food,” Tom says, gesturing toward the cans. “But it’s not. And nobody worries more about how much we have left than Don.”

“How often do you take stock?” Malorie asks.

“Once a week. But sometimes, when I get restless, I’ll come down and check things again the day after I already did it.”

“It’s cool down here.”

“Yeah. A classic cold-storage basement. It’s ideal.”

“What happens if we run out?”

Tom faces her. His features are soft in the light.

“Then we go get more. We raid grocery stores. Other homes. Whatever we can.”

“Right,” Malorie says, nodding.

While Tom marks the paper, Malorie studies the cellar.

“I guess this would be the safest room in the house then,” she says.

Tom pauses. He thinks about it.

“I don’t think so. I think the attic is safer.”

“Why?”

“Did you notice the lock on the walk in here? The door is really old. It locks, but it’s delicate. It’s almost as if this cellar was built first, years ago, before they decided to add a house to it. But the attic door . . .
that
bolt is incredible. If we needed to secure ourselves, if one of those things were to get into the house, I’d say the attic is where we’d want to go.”

Malorie instinctively looks up. She rubs her shoulders.

If we needed to secure ourselves
.

“Judging by how much stock we have left,” Tom says, “we could live another three to four months off it. That sounds like a lot of time, but it passes quickly in here. The days begin to mush together. That’s why we started keeping the calendar on the wall in the living room. You know, in a way, time doesn’t mean a thing anymore. But it’s one of the only things we have that resembles the lives we used to live.”

“The passing of time?”

“Yeah. And what we do with it.”

Malorie steps to a short wooden stool and sits. Tom is still making notes.

“I’ll show you all the chores when we get back upstairs,” Tom says. Then, pointing to a space between the shelves and the hanging tapestry, he says, “Do you see that there?”

Malorie looks but can’t tell what he means.

“Come here.”

Tom walks her to the wall, where some of the brick is broken. Earth shows behind it.

“I can’t tell if this scares me or if I like it,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the ground is exposed. Does that mean we could start digging? Build a tunnel? A second cellar? More room? Or is it just another way to get inside?”

Tom’s eyes are bright and sharp in the cellar light.

“The thing is,” he says, “if the creatures really wanted to get into our house . . . they’d have no problem doing it. And I guess they would have already.”

Malorie stares at the open patch of dirt on the wall. She imagines crawling through tunnels, pregnant. She imagines worms.

After a brief silence, she asks, “What did you do before this happened?”

“My job? I was a teacher. Eighth grade.”

Malorie nods.”I actually thought you looked like one.”

“You know what? I’ve heard that before. Many times! I kind of like that.” He feigns fixing the collar of his shirt. “Class,” he says, “today we’re going to learn all about canned goods. So, everybody, shut the fuck up.”

Malorie laughs.

“What did you do?” Tom asks.

“I hadn’t gotten that far yet,” Malorie says.

“You lost your sister, huh?” Tom says gently.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.” Then he says, “I lost a daughter.”

“Oh God, Tom.”

Tom pauses, as if considering whether or not to tell Malorie more. Then he does.

“Robin’s mother died during childbirth. It feels cruel, telling you that, given your condition. But if we’re going to get to know one another, it’s a story you’ll need to know. Robin was a great kid. Smarter than her father at eight years old. She liked the oddest things. Like the instructions for a toy more than the toy itself. The credits of a movie instead of the movie. The way something was written. An expression on my face. Once she told me I looked like the sun to her, because of my hair. I asked her if I shined like the sun, and she told me, ‘No, Daddy, you shine more like the moon, when it’s dark outside.’

“When the reports came on the news and people started to take it seriously, I was the kind of father who said I wasn’t going to live in fear. I tried very hard to carry on with our daily life. And I especially wanted to convey that idea to Robin. She’d heard things at school. I just didn’t want her to be so afraid. But, after a while, I couldn’t pretend anymore. Soon, the parents were taking their kids out of school. Then the school itself shut down. Temporarily. Or until they ‘had the confidence of the community to continue providing a safe place for their children.’ Those were dark days, Malorie. I was a teacher, too, you know, and the school I taught in shut its doors about the same time. So we suddenly had a lot of time together at home. I got to see how much she’d grown. Her mind was getting so big. Still, she was too young to understand how scary the stories were on the news. I did my best not to hide them from her, but the father in me couldn’t help but change the station sometimes.

“The radio got to be too much for her. Robin started having nightmares. I spent a lot of time calming her down. I always felt like I was lying to her. We agreed neither of us would look out the windows anymore. We agreed she wouldn’t go outside without my permission. Somehow, I had to make her believe things were safe and horribly unsafe at the same time.

“She started spending the night in my bed, but one morning I woke to find she wasn’t there. She’d been talking the night before about wanting things to be how they used to be. She talked of wanting her mother, whom she’d never met. It crushed me, hearing her like that, eight years old and telling me life was unfair. When I woke and didn’t find her, I told myself she was just getting used to it. This new life. But I think maybe Robin lost something of her youth the night before, as she realized, before I did, how serious it was, what was happening outside our house.”

Tom pauses. He looks to the cellar floor.

“I found her in the bathtub, Malorie. Floating. Her little wrists cut with the razor she’d seen me shave with a thousand times. The water was red. The blood dripped over the tub’s edge. Blood on the walls. This was a child. Eight years old. Did she look outside? Or did she just decide to do this herself? I’ll never know that answer.”

Malorie reaches for Tom and holds him.

But he does not cry. Instead, after a moment, he steps to the shelves and begins marking the paper.

Malorie thinks of Shannon. She, too, died in the bathroom. She, too, took her own life.

When Tom is finished, he asks Malorie if she’s ready to go back upstairs. As he reaches for the lightbulb’s string, he sees she is looking at the patch of open dirt along the wall.

“Freaky, no?” he says.

“Yeah.”

“Well, don’t let it be. It’s just one of the old-world fears, carrying over.”

“What’s that?”

“The fear of the cellar.”

Malorie nods.

Then Tom pulls the string and the light goes out.

nine

C
reatures
,” Malorie thinks.
What a cheap word
.

The children are quiet and the banks are still. She can hear the paddles slicing the water. The rhythm of her rowing is in step with her heartbeat, and then it falters. When the cadences oppose, she feels like she could die.

Creatures
.

Malorie has never liked this word. It’s out of place, somehow. The things that have haunted her for more than four years are not
creatures
to her. A garden slug is a creature. A porcupine. But the things that have lurked beyond draped windows and have kept her blindfolded are not the sort that an exterminator could ever remove.

“Barbarian” isn’t right, either. A barbarian is reckless. So is a brute
.

In the distance, a bird sings a song from high in the sky. The paddles cut the water, shifting with each row.

“Behemoth” is unproven. They could be as small as a fingernail
.

Though they are early in their journey along the river, Malorie’s muscles ache from rowing. Her shirt is soaked through with sweat. Her feet are cold. The blindfold continues to irritate.

“Demon.” “Devil.” “Rogue.” Maybe they are all these things
.

Her sister died because she saw one. Her parents must have met the same fate.

“Imp” is too kind. “Savage” too human
.

Malorie is not only afraid of the things that may wade in the river, she is also fascinated by them.

Do they know what they do? Do they mean to do what they do?

Right now, it feels as if the whole world is dead. It feels like the rowboat is the last remaining place where life can be found. The rest of the world fans out from the tip of the boat, an empty globe, blooming and vacant with each row.

If they don’t know what they do, they can’t be “villains
.”

The children have been quiet a long time. A second birdsong comes from above. A fish splashes. Malorie has never seen this river. What does it look like? Do the trees crowd the banks? Are there houses lining its shore?

They are monsters
, Malorie thinks. But she knows they are more than this. They are
infinity
.

“Mommy!” the Boy suddenly cries.

A bird of prey caws; its echo breaks across the river.

“What is it, Boy?”

“It sounds like an engine.”

“
What?
”

Malorie stops paddling. She listens closely.

Far off, beyond even the river’s flow, comes the sound of an engine.

Malorie recognizes it immediately. It is the sound of another boat approaching.

Rather than feeling excitement at the prospect of encountering another human being on this river, Malorie is afraid.