The Bird Eater (10 page)

Aaron cracked a grin as he chewed on the antithesis of Bennie’s creation, and Eric peered down at his own sandwich and frowned.

“Anyway,” Eric said, “continue. You went to Bennie’s Burgers…”

“I went to Bennie’s Burgers like you suggested, and while I’m sitting at one of their outdoor tables I look across the street at the high school…”

“The high school,” Eric said flatly. “Weird, right?”

“What happened to it, anyway?” Aaron asked. “Whose bright idea was it to consolidate at the elementary school instead of moving the little kids to a bigger building?”

“There was a fire,” Eric said. “It happened the year after we graduated. Well, we as in Cheri and me. I don’t know if you ended up graduating in ninety-seven or not.” Aaron gave him a nod. “Anyway, I wasn’t here for the insanity of the whole thing—I was already out in Little Rock—but from what Craig says, someone planted a pipe bomb in the cafeteria, blew out half a cinderblock wall.”

“Holy shit.”

“Nobody was in there when it happened except some cafeteria workers, and they were too far away to get anything but seriously freaked out. I guess the timer was rigged wrong, but yeah, someone basically tried to blow up the fucking school. They never figured out who it was, and after it happened there was just this air of, like, having avoided fate or something. You know, like those
Final Destination
movies? Nobody wanted to go back in there, and it would have cost an arm and a leg to repair the damage, so they just moved everyone to the elementary school and called it good.”

“That’s insane.” Aaron took another swig of beer. “But kids wander around in there?”

Eric shrugged. “We would have, wouldn’t we?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“It’s still creepy, though. I mean, I’ve seen a few people hanging around the building after dark, but I think most of them avoid going inside. It’s that whole escaped-fate feeling. What if the Grim Reaper is in there, patiently waiting for his body count?”

“That sounds like some grade-A necromancy right there,” Aaron said, a ghost of an amused smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You always did believe in the weirdest shit.”

Eric shrugged and leaned back in his seat. It was true, he was a junkie when it came to conspiracy theories. He’d probably spent years of his life in front of the TV, watching documentaries on ghosts and aliens and government cover-ups. Living in a place like Boone County, you took your thrills any way you could. That stuff made the world a more interesting place, and in backwoods like this, you either kept your mind engaged or your brain turned to sludge.

“Regardless,” Aaron said after a moment. “I saw a kid in there.”

“Inside the high school?”

Aaron nodded. “He was wandering past the busted-out front windows, noticed me looking at him, made some weird gesture with his hands, and took off.”

Eric laughed. “A
weird gesture?
You mean he flipped you the bird?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Aaron said. “He hooked his thumbs together and, like, flapped his hands like wings. Either way, I’m positive it was the same kid who’s been screwing with my car.”

“Maybe it is,” Eric said. “But that’s a pretty big assumption.”

“It’s not an assumption.”

“Why? How do you know for sure?”

Aaron shrugged, staring down at his plate.

“Everyone in town knows who you are. They know you’re Edie’s nephew and that you’re living out in the creepy-ass house at the end of Old Mill. People are curious,
especially
the kids. I wouldn’t be surprised if half of the Warrior Army has driven out here in the dead of night.”

“Yeah,” Aaron murmured, distant.

“And quite frankly,” Eric continued, “I’d be careful if I were you.”

“What?” Aaron was caught off-guard by the impromptu warning.

“These are the fucking Ozarks, man. You know there are all kinds of weirdos out here. This place is in the boonies of the boonies. It’s on a road that’s, like, virtually abandoned. No neighbors, too much property to effectively check for freaks.”

“What are you trying to do,” Aaron asked, “scare the hell out of me?”

“I’m just saying. I don’t know how a kid, especially a younger one, would get out here from the center of town. It’s more than a ten-mile drive, so it isn’t like he could walk it.”

“So you’re saying I’m imagining things?”

“Not at all.” Eric threw his head back and drained his beer. “I’m saying that these weirdos come out to places like this. These are some of the last unspoiled pieces of North American land. What if the kid actually
lives
in the forest just beyond this place? What if you’re dealing with a whole family of ravenous cannibals or something?”

“Okay, stop.” Aaron looked genuinely freaked out, and Eric’s enthusiasm for the strange and unusual wasn’t helping. Aaron peered at his burger, then finished it off in a couple of bites.

“Sorry, man,” Eric said, deciding to dismiss the whole idea. “You’re right, it’s probably just some stupid kid. He probably hitched a ride or something. Maybe he has a four-wheeler. Who knows?” He shrugged at his own question. “Hell, who cares? All I know is that if someone is showing up on your porch, you need to have that gun of yours at arm’s length. If I were you, I’d stuff it into the waistband of my jeans and Dirty Harry it from now on. If someone is genuinely screwing with you, going out of their way to come out here and scare you, stare through your windows, vandalize your car, there’s something seriously wrong with them. Like,
mentally
. That isn’t what normal people do.”

“You aren’t helping,” Aaron said.

“I know,” Eric said, holding up his hands once again. “I’m sorry. I just think you need to be careful. Don’t isolate yourself out here.”

Aaron nodded faintly.

“I’m serious. You quarantine yourself out in the middle of nowhere and you’re liable to go nuts.”

“I hear you,” Aaron reassured him, but he was less than convincing, and that made Eric nervous. There was something about the way Aaron was willing to accept what was happening to him, his lack of fight, the gun…something about the whole thing didn’t sit right.

“Hey,” he said, “are you okay?”

Aaron’s expression wavered slightly, but a second later he was putting on a brave face and nodding his head. “Sure, why?”

“Just checking.” Eric rubbed the back of his neck. “You a whiskey man?”

“What?” Aaron actually looked defensive for a second, confirming Eric’s suspicion. Aaron had thrown back more than half a dozen beers out at Stonehenge and still walked a straight line back to his car. If Eric had tried that same trick, he would have stumbled headlong into Bull Shoals Lake.

“I saw the bottle in the sink,” Eric told him.

“Oh.” Aaron leaned back in his chair, began to construct another sandwich. “I found that outside,” he said. “Figured I’d keep the bottle for—”

Their conversation came to an abrupt halt when a starling swooped across the backyard and kamikazeed into the brand-new kitchen window. Aaron and Eric stared at the thing as it weakly flapped its wings twice and died, its neck bent at an impossible angle. But before Aaron could say a word, there was another bang, this time from the front of the house, far louder than the first.

Aaron dropped his half-eaten second burger onto his plate and twisted in his seat.

“What the hell was that?” Eric asked, looking about as startled as Aaron felt.

Aaron slowly shook his head to say he didn’t know. The thud that had come from the front of the house had sounded heavy, two weighty knocks, as though someone had thrown a sack of potatoes against his door and let it drop to the porch—
bang, thump.
Aaron peered at the door as he approached it, Eric fast on his heels. What could it be this time? A bag of maggoty meat? An assault of rotten eggs? A sack of flaming shit care of Ironwood’s chummiest adolescent?

Welcome to the neighborhood, asshole.

He unlocked the door, jerked the thing open.

Lying on his doorstep was the carcass of the biggest crow Aaron had ever seen. The bug netting that he’d repaired was torn, only a minor detail compared to the swath of gore that now decorated the whitewash along the side of the door.

“Holy shit,” Eric muttered as he stood with his arms at his sides, blinking at the dead animal where Aaron’s welcome mat should have been. The thing was massive. Eric assumed it had a wingspan of at least four or five feet.

“Is it dead?” Eric finally asked.

Aaron stood next to him, glowering at the thing.

“Obviously.”

“I don’t know, man, it’s a crow. These things are like Necronomicons. Nudge it.”

“With what?”

“Your shoe, man. Just give it a kick.”

Aaron’s face twisted in distaste. “I’m not kicking it.”

“I thought you said it’s dead,” Eric countered. “Think you’re going to hurt its feelings?”

“If it isn’t dead, I’ll nudge it and it’ll tear my face off.”

Eric cracked a grin at that, imagining Aaron with a face full of bird, then cleared his throat and looked serious again. “So get a stick or something. If it moves, you can smack it.”

Aaron looked horrified.

“Baseball is America’s pastime,” Eric said. Something about that made Aaron’s face twist in alarm. “What, since when do you not like baseball?” he asked. “Besides, what’re you going to do, leave it on your doorstep? What if it starts rotting? Its eyes will go first. It’ll get all bloated and creepy, the flies will come…”

Aaron grimaced and slowly extended his foot, the tip of his sneaker tapping one of the crows clenched feet. The thing didn’t move.

“I told you, it’s dead,” Aaron said, pulling his leg away. “It flew right through the netting, which I
just
replaced.”

“Well.” Eric crossed his arms over his chest in contemplation, staring at the splat of gore next to the door, his eyebrows furrowed. “That’s pretty fucked up; maybe he doesn’t like home improvement?”

“This giant fucking thing slams into the front of my house a few seconds after a starling tries to fly through the kitchen window,” Aaron murmured, as if trying to put it together.

“Starlings are stupid birds,” Eric assured him.

“That isn’t the point. You know about all this stuff. Does it make sense to you?”

Eric considered it, then shook his head. “No. Starlings may be stupid, but crows are smart. They don’t fly into windows or run into hous
es.” He gave his friend a stern look. “You didn’t do anything to piss them off, did you?”

“What? To piss off the
crows
?”

“Crows hold grudges,” Eric said matter-of-factly. “And they tell their friends. You’ve seen
The Birds
, right? Oh sure, it’s just a movie…until you realize that it can actually happen.”

“This isn’t a movie.”

“Are you sure about that? You’re the one living in a haunted house.”

Again Aaron stared at him.

“I’m just saying. I know you don’t believe in this stuff, but maybe the house is a beacon.”

“A
beacon
?” Aaron gave Eric a dubious look.

“Since when are you so skeptical of everything? Maybe it’s a beacon, and that’s why people think it’s haunted in the first place. You know how certain places can have certain frequencies?”

“No.” Aaron shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, staring at the carcass before him. “I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The thing really was huge. Eric bet it rivaled his grandmother’s old tabby cat. When that cat had finally kicked the bucket it had weighed over thirty pounds. His mind began to wander, jumping from one urban legend to the next: crows snatching up those little Yorkie dogs city girls carried around like fashion accessories, crows kidnapping babies from strollers when their mothers looked away.

“You know, like electromagnetic fields…” Eric continued.

“Well, is there some way you can
check
that?” Aaron asked.