The Bird Eater (11 page)

“You mean prove it’s a beacon?” Eric pressed his lips together in a tentative line, considered it, then shrugged in response. “I’m sure someone can, but I’m not that guy.”

“I thought you
were
that guy.”

“Because I head a ghost hunting society?” He grimaced, crossed his arms over his chest. He was sensitive about all those friendly jabs only because he knew NAPS was a joke. He had started the group with the vision of it becoming
the
paranormal group of Arkansas—a group that traveled all over the state for investigations, that locals would call if they thought there was something weird going on in their house. He imagined himself as one of the guys on television, setting up motion detectors and interviewing freaked-out homeowners, assuring them that everything was going to be fine.

We’re on the case, ma’am. Nothing to worry about. Just a poltergeist. Just a demon. Just the Devil himself trying to eat your soul. Good thing you called when you did.

And yet, after nearly ten years running, NAPS had a total of three members—Eric included—and had been contracted a total of zero times. They had gone on a few field trips but had never caught anything of significance. All in all, NAPS was a complete and utter failure, but Eric had too much pride to let it disband.

“What you’re talking about is something completely out of my realm of knowledge,” Eric admitted. “If you were anyone else, I’d consider blowing smoke up your ass, but honestly, I don’t even know how to measure something like that. If it was just one room of the house, then yeah…”

“I don’t even know why I’m considering it,” Aaron murmured, as if suddenly feeling ridiculous for entertaining the idea.

“Because it’s science,” Eric protested. “Regardless of whether or not you believe it, we’re sensitive to that stuff. If you put a person in a room and play a certain frequency, you can make them sick, nervous, scared, whatever. And they don’t have a clue as to why they’re feeling that way. Hell, there’s a frequency out there that’ll make you crap your pants on cue. I kid you not. You’re just standing around, sipping your caramel macchiato, none the wiser, and then…” Eric pursed his lips and blew a raspberry. “I read about it.”

“On the Internet?”

“Doesn’t matter where.”

“Pretty sure it does.”

“Point is: People poop their pants all the time,” Eric said. “You could be next.”

“What does this have to do with the birds?”

“Maybe nothing, maybe everything.” Eric shifted his weight, canted his head to the side as he peered at the greasy-looking feathers of the bird between them. “Maybe this house gives off a specific frequency and that’s why it creeps the shit out of people. Maybe that’s why birds are flying into your windows. Frequencies.”

Aaron pressed his hands to his face in a bone-weary way. “But you have no way of testing that theory.”

Eric hesitated, not wanting to admit defeat, but he eventually let his shoulders slump and murmured, “No. I mean, we can meter the place if you want. I’ve got an EMF detector at home.”

“Forget it,” Aaron said.

Looking back down at the bird, Eric imagined it swooping down from a tree and pecking his eyes out. What kind of a bird could hold a grudge? Only one that the devil made. “What are you going to do with this thing?” he asked.

“I don’t know, toss it into the woods, I guess…”

“Uh, you think that’s the best idea?”

“Why not?” Aaron asked. “A wolf will get it.”

“Crows are the harbingers of death,” Eric reminded him.

“So, what are you saying? If I touch this thing, I’ll be cursed or something?”

“Well,
no
, but…”

“Good.” Leaning down, Aaron grabbed the bird by its foot and hefted it off the planks. “Because I gotta tell you, I’m
already
fucking cursed.”

“Oh God.” Eric winced and backed away, not wanting to be anywhere near that crow, watching Aaron stagger backward, push open the screen door, and wobble down the stairs.

“This thing weighs a ton.”

Eric followed him across the front lawn, stopping where he stood when Aaron swung the crow back and forth like a pendulum before releasing it for its final flight.

“Shit, wait,” Eric protested, but his objection came a second too late. He winced as the bird clumsily cartwheeled through the air and smacked into the trunk of a tree. “Oh, Christ,” he mumbled, covering his face with a hand. If crows
were
mystical in some sort of way, Eric was sure that particular one would be coming back for vengeance.

Aaron turned back to the house, rolling his right shoulder as if he’d popped something out of place. Eric watched his gaze trail upward to the oaks that lined the driveway, a mass of starlings chirping along the branches. He would have suggested Aaron climb up there and knock their nests down but thought better of it, remembering how Fletcher had died when he and Aaron were eight. Instead, he posed a question he already knew the answer to.

“You want me to come back with my meter later?”

Aaron shook his head.

“It’s kind of ironic, don’t you think?”

“What is?” Aaron asked.

“The fact that you’re having bird trouble, and all your tats—at least the ones anyone can see—are of birds. Maybe
you’re
the beacon.”

Aaron’s face went strangely blank at that suggestion, and after a moment Eric shrugged as if to discredit his own suggestion.

“Anyway, I should get going. I’m supposed to stop by my mom’s place, help the old man with some sort of computer problem. When I talked to him this morning, he told me he ‘broke the world wide website.’ You want help cleaning up?”

“No, it’s all right,” Aaron told him, sounding distant.

“Hey,” Eric said, “Don’t sweat it. The bird thing, it’s just a weird coincidence. I’ll see you around?”

“See you around,” Aaron echoed as Eric pulled his keys out of his pocket and made his way to his Pontiac.

He sat in the driveway for a while, watching the way Aaron stared out into the trees where that dead crow lay. Something about it gave him the creeps, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“Bury it,” he muttered to himself, shoving his key into the ignition. “It’s not too late.”

And then he pulled out of the driveway and eased the car onto the street.

Ten

Aaron set up the camcorder on one of the front windowsills, pressed
RECORD
, and backed away from the device. He didn’t know whether Eric had been serious about the suggestion of setting up the camera as a makeshift surveillance system or not, but it seemed like it was worth a try. The device only had a four-hour capacity, but four hours was better than nothing. It was already half past midnight; if someone was going to sneak up on the house, they’d more than likely do it in that window.

Climbing the stairs, Aaron pulled his T-shirt over his head, tossed it toward his open bedroom door, and stepped into the bathroom. He smelled like a bonfire after his fight with the barbecue pit. Cranking the bathtub faucet into the red, he waited for the water to run hot while kicking off his jeans, then stepped into the tub and drew the shower curtain closed.

He stood beneath the warm torrent, water slithering down images of ravens and sparrows that decorated his skin, coiling across the eagle’s wings that circled his neck. He imagined the rain he was missing back home. It didn’t rain much in Ironwood, but when it did it brought with it an air of celebration. Summer downpours had always been the best. Aaron would bolt out the front door and run barefoot across the lawn, his arms outstretched to collect as much water on his T-shirt and shorts as possible, his feet splashing in warm, marshlike pools. The butterflies came out after the rain, their wings fluttering in the humidity as they flitted around Edie’s garden. Aaron pursued them as best he could. He’d try to sneak up on the colorful insects and carefully catch them by their wings. Uncle Fletcher had constructed a small enclosure in the backyard for Aaron’s fleeting hobby of collecting insects; he wanted to fill it with butterflies for his aunt—a gorgeous ecosystem of oscillating color, a living rainbow just for her.

Perhaps Edie’s love of butterflies was what had spurred Aaron’s fascination with birds. Maybe the kid who was stalking him had some supernatural ability, telepathy revealing all of Aaron’s most intimate details: Ryder’s name, the birds piled on the living room floor like a gruesome offering to the house’s new occupant.

Standing in the spray of the shower, Aaron closed his eyes, trying to imagine himself back home with Evangeline, but all he saw was the way Holbrook House had looked when he was a kid—sunny, well-kept, nothing like what it was now with its dirty wallpaper and peeling paint. He saw

Edie climbing the stairs, her eyes wide with confused inquiry. Aaron was standing at the top of the stairs, a delicate spray of red decorating his face, his arms, his hands. Edie stopped upon the last riser and stared at him, her eyes darting from his face and toward his bedroom door. She opened her mouth as if to scream, but she wasn’t given the chance. Aaron smashed the baseball bat he held in his hands against her temple and she went flying backward, soundless save for the thud of her body against the stairs.

Aaron whooped as he followed her down to the first floor. He watched her writhe at the foot of the stairs for a moment, a tingle of enjoyment buzzing inside his guts as she tried to pull herself across the floor, a whimpering moan spilling from her lips. She reached an arm toward the door, as if reaching for it would summon it closer, would somehow aid in her escape. But there was no escape. Dropping the bat onto the hardwood floor, Aaron watched himself skip down the hallway into the kitchen before drawing a knife out of one of the kitchen drawers. But when he turned around to return to the front room, Aaron’s face was replaced by his stalker’s leer.

The kid took his time getting back to the base of the stairs, Edie clawing at the floor as she pulled herself across the planks like a soldier in the field. The kid cocked his head to the side as he watched her struggle, then straddled her with a little laugh and poised the butcher’s knife above his head, held fast in both hands. Edie jerked against the bite of

cold water. Aaron blinked, surprised to be where he was, the bathroom filled with steam. Shutting off the water, he shoved the shower curtain aside, that familiar panic taking hold of his heart. He wrapped a towel around his waist and backed away from the tub, twisted to stare at himself in the wet mirror above the sink.

“What the fuck?” he whispered, pressing his fingers hard against his eyes. He couldn’t get the image out of his head—the way Edie had flown down the stairs, the kid skipping down the hall, the flash of that knife. Maybe Cooper was right—Doc Jandreau had been a quack to recommend coming back here, locking himself away in this house of nightmares.
Of course
it would drive him insane, because what was here beside bad memories and poisoned dreams?

Not bothering to dry himself off, he padded down the hall and into his bedroom, grabbed the bottle of Ativan off the bedside table, and shook a couple into his palm. He should have flushed those pills down the toilet the day he arrived, but he had kept them just in case,
just in case…
and now he was glad he hadn’t followed quack Jandreau’s orders and dumped them the way he was supposed to.

“Sorry, Doc,” he murmured, tossed the pills into his mouth, and lifted the can of Coke from next to the bedside lamp, shaking it. Empty. Moving through the upstairs breezeway, he stepped into the bathroom and made a beeline for the sink. He cranked the cold water, ducked down, and slurped from the stream to wash the pills down, nearly choking when a loud bang sounded from down the hall.

A door slammed closed, and not by any crosscurrent or breeze.

It was a slam forceful enough to rattle the hinges, a slam loud enough to shake the walls.

Every nerve in his body buzzed. Every hair on his body stood on end. He tore his eyes away from his own startled reflection, his mouth dry despite the water he’d just drunk. Squeezing his eyes shut and willing himself to stay calm, he curled his fingers around the edge of the sink

did I just imagine that?

counted to ten

am I awake?

and after an extended moment of breathless stasis

is this a dream, or is someone really inside the house this time?

he broke into a run and bolted back to his room.

Dropping to his knees at the side of his bed, he shoved his hand beneath it and grabbed the hard plastic case that housed his Glock .45. He jumped as another door was hurled against its frame,

Jesus Christ

trembling hands fumbling with the magazine as he slid it into the pistol grip. He wasn’t sure why he even bothered loading the gun—what was he going to do if that bastard kid was screwing around downstairs, shoot him? Despite the kid being a pain in the ass, if Aaron accidentally killed him, he’d never forgive himself. But then Eric’s outlandish suggestions came flooding back:

Backwoods cannibals.

Ozarks freaks.

“Shit.” He breathed the word into the darkness of his bedroom, cautiously padding barefooted toward the open door. His brain expanded and contracted with the thudding of his pulse. He opened his mouth to speak, to issue some kind of warning, and nearly jumped out of his skin when a third slam sounded from the ground floor.

A single thought jammed his circuits:
Please don’t make me shoot you, kid. Please don’t make me fucking shoot.
He moved into the upstairs hall, peeked over the banister to see if there was anyone there, but the area around the base of the stairs was clear.

Aaron gritted his teeth and began his descent.

He pressed his back against the wall, the towel around his waist threatening to come loose. Holding his breath, he listened for movement, his gun held at the ready, his pointer finger resting against the trigger guard. Peeking around the corner, he scanned the front room as best he could, half expecting to spot another pile of dead birds in the middle of the floor—but the room was empty, and from what he could see, the birds hadn’t reappeared. Slinking along the hallway wall toward the kitchen, he knew his movements were soundless, but every breath felt like a scream; every careful footfall seemed like a stomp.

Aaron stopped in the mouth of the kitchen, clenched his teeth, and dared to poke his head out into the open. But there was nothing. The room was empty, completely undisturbed. He jutted out his arm, and ran it along the kitchen wall until his palm found the light switch. The overhead light clicked on, illuminating the room through an old plastic shade that needed to be replaced. The room glowed in a sickly saffron hue, giving the sorry state of the kitchen an even more somber look of disrepair.

He checked the downstairs bathroom and the hallway closet, ducking around corners and pointing that gun like Clint Eastwood, if Clint Eastwood was doing house rounds in nothing but a towel. But there was simply nothing to shoot. The doors were locked; the windows were securely latched; nobody was hiding in the shadows, but his heart continued to slap against his diaphragm at a million miles an hour. There was no chance of getting to sleep now, at least not without soothing his nerves first. The Ativan wouldn’t kick in for at least another ten minutes, and he had been too sore to drive into town for more booze.

Abandoning the gun on the kitchen counter, he shoved his head into the fridge, snatched a pint of chocolate ice cream out of the freezer, and shoveled a spoonful of the stuff into his mouth. His brain screamed out against the momentary freeze, but it was a welcome sensation. Anything was better than that familiar tension. He ate until the ice cream was gone, left the chocolate-smeared container and spoon on the kitchen table, and began to slink toward the hallway, ready to stalk back upstairs and attempt to will himself to sleep.

But he paused just shy of the hallway, the hair on the back of his neck bristling when he realized what he was seeing.

Someone was there.

Someone was standing in the hallway, staring right at him, half-concealed by the shadows that clung to the walls.

Aaron stared into the darkness, making out the curve of what looked like a shoulder, the delicate line of a neck. He backtracked to the counter, grabbed his gun, and pointed it at the figure. Sickened with a sense of foreboding, he heard his voice crack, dry with apprehension: “Who’s there?”

No response.

The figure remained static, unmoving.

Aaron dared take another step forward, expecting the figure to bolt down the hall and out the front door, but it stayed where it was. Despite the loaded gun held firmly in his hands, Aaron felt panic claw at his neck, threatening to choke the life out of him, but the closer he got to the hall, the less pronounced the figure became. It was
fading
, nothing but a trick of the light: a shadow, slowly dissipating until it completely disappeared.

Aaron flipped on the hallway light and stared at its nondescript walls, nothing remarkable about that part of the house save for the bit of wallpaper that had flopped down close to the ceiling, exposing a raw partition beneath. Turning away from the hall, he couldn’t keep his teeth from chattering, not sure whether he was cold or actually that afraid. He sat down to catch his breath, to figure out what the hell was happening.

You’re losing your mind, that’s what’s happening.

He had heard the doors slam shut just as he had seen someone standing on his front porch. Could it be possible that Evangeline had been right? Was he hallucinating all of this?

But Ryder’s name on the car door was real.

Except he wasn’t even sure about that anymore. Sure,
he
had seen it, but Eric had failed to mention it when he had come over. What if Aaron was the only one who
could
see it? What if that, too, was some extended delusion that had slipped beyond the fringes of his imagination and was now tainting some alternate version of reality?

He slouched in his chair, his hands pressed hard against the hollows of his eyes. When he finally allowed his hands to drop to the table, he found himself staring at a perfect circle of condensation against the wood. It was the spot where he had left his empty pint of ice cream only moments before. But now it was gone.

Slowly turning his head, he looked over his shoulder.

The empty pint sat next to the sink, the spoon lying next to it even though Aaron left it jutting out of the container at an angle.

Even though he knew he hadn’t walked that stuff over to the counter.

Even though he knew.

But the empty ice cream pint was the least of his worries. Aaron stared wide-eyed at the once spotless surface of the new kitchen window, something inside him loosening, starting to pull free from the shackles of sanity.

Two handprints mired the glass, distinctly red, coagulated and glistening in the dull kitchen light.

Two handprints, connected at the thumbs.

A pair of bloody bird
’
s wings, like a butterfly under glass.