“What’s wrong with him?” Danny asked, the words all but lost beneath the swells of Sean’s cries.
“It must be the pain.” Robby’s voice was calm, but his eyes were huge and horrified. Sean’s leg was immobilized and the bleeding in his shoulder had stopped hours ago. His vitals had been good ... steady. There would naturally be some pain, but there was no reason for this display of agony. Unless ... unless Robby had missed something; a broken hip or rib, a nerve pinched between the shards of two obliterated vertebrae ... something ... anything that would make Sean scream like that.
“Put the fucker down,” Skip urged. “I’m about to drop his ass!”
They quickly lowered the stretcher to the ground, moved away from Sean as if he were some bomb about to explode. In fact, it looked as if he might do just that. Breath poured out of him in a white geyser, like a reactor venting steam, and his skin had gone from pale to a rosy pink. The latter might have been a trick of the camcorder light, but Deidra didn’t think it was. It was as if he were burning inside.
Sean suddenly stopped rocking. He arched his back until he nearly stood on his head – a drill one of Deidra’s ex-boyfriends was forced to do for wrestling practice – and then he cried out in a terror, “Mondamin!”
Paul looked at Deidra; his wide, shocked eyes confirming that she hadn’t just imagined it. She thought Paul had simply seen the term in her report. This might have been the case, but Sean had never read it. Had never even been in her kitchen to see it hung on the fridge, her grade drawn like the scarlet letter in the upper margin. How did he know that word? How could he know it?
Sean continued to roll around on the towels, shrieking at the top of his lungs, “Mondamin is here! Here! Mondamin is here!”
Deidra covered her ears with her hands and looked away. There, in the haze, she saw a ghostly gray shadow. Though she could make out few details, she knew it wasn’t Dorr or Coyne; it wasn’t even human. It was twisted ... slumped ... she could see the dim, diffused light from the camcorder shimmer on its skin – its moving, pulsating skin – and its bony arms paddled the misty air. It looked like something from a surrealist’s painting – Bosch or Giger came most easily to her mind – and it did have wings, not crow’s wings as she had first thought, but huge, membranous bat wings.
No, she told herself. I’m not seeing this. This ... This is not real.
Deidra sensed that the thing knew it had been seen, that it was in fact looking straight back at her. Beneath the weight of its stare, she felt her own skin rise and migrate across her body, leaving cold in its wake. Her hands moved to cup her mouth and she screamed into them. Her cries joined with Sean’s, forming one loud symphony of terror as she backed away, watching the creature retreat into the fog as if it were her own tangled reflection in a fun house mirror.
Not REAL!
What happened next happened fast.
Paul wheeled at the sound of Deidra’s screams, caught her as she stumbled and fell backward into his embrace. He felt the sobs course through her body like ripples on a lake, smelled the sour musk of frightened sweat overpower her perfume. He started to ask her what was wrong, but before he could even part his lips, the air filled with the sound of rustling feathers.
NOT ... REAL!
The crows exploded from the milky void and the world became nothing but flapping wings, sharp talons, and beaks. To Deidra’s eyes, it appeared as if they had stumbled into Hell’s aviary. She felt hands on her shoulders, pushing.
It was Paul.
“Get down!” he told her.
Deidra dropped to the cold earth, Paul hugging her back. She tilted her head to the side, her hands over her ears, and tried to see what was happening. Later, she would curse herself for not closing her eyes, for not shutting it out entirely, but her curiosity had the better hand, and, once the violence started, it was impossible to look away.
The black column of birds headed directly for Sean as if trained to do so. The first one landed on his shoulder. It looked at his cheek a moment, then plunged into it with its beak. Another perched on his face and curled its talons around his bottom lip. Deidra saw red spurts of blood from the corners of Sean’s screaming mouth as the crow tore the flesh from his jaw. The bird beat his ears with its wings, and its head bobbed up and down, pecking at his eyes. Another crow settled on his chest, another on his leg, and then Sean was covered in an undulating blanket of black feathers.
Deidra could watch no more. She turned away and saw Mick reach into his backpack, saw him pull out a knife. It was the largest blade she’d ever seen, like something a gladiator might take into the arena – one side smooth metal, the other serrated. What was Mick doing with a knife? – Mick of all people?
Her frantic mind tugged at her hands, pulled them down over her eyes, blocking out the horrors around her.
Just close your eyes, dear, it said, trying to calm her. Close your eyes and it will all go away.
This was just another nightmare, she realized. Only there could a flock of ravenous crows exist, only there could Mick wield a knife. It was all very comforting.
Any second now, she told herself, I’ll wake up safe in Paul’s arms. We’ll still have the entire day ahead of us, untouched. This time, I won’t get up and make that phone call. I’m fucking unexcused anyway! This time, I’ll stay in bed and screw Paul until his balls are bruised and I can’t even think about walking. So what if Mom comes walking in! So fucking what! Everything will be fine; everything will be just peachy keen!
But she knew she was wrong.
This was no dream, no nightmare.
This was as real as it fucking gets.
Twenty
Everyone dove for the ground when the crows came, everyone but Danny Fields.
He’d never been a Boy Scout, but the term had been used on him before. Once he’d found a wallet at the State Fair and turned it in to security without so much as a glance inside. What did he care if there was money in it? There could have been a million dollars. None of it was his. In the dead of winter, he frequently saw stalled cars, cars that slid from the road into drainage ditches, and he never thought twice about stopping. He would offer the driver a jump from his battery, even a ride home if needed. One of the joys of having four-wheel drive was that you could get just about anywhere in Harmony, even in a foot or two of snow. He’d never shied away from helping strangers, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to start now, not when his best friend was in terrible pain, in the throes of some gut-turning torture. Helping Sean was the only thought on Danny’s mind.
He sprinted forward, covering his face with his muscular arms, once more employing the quickness that had earned him his scholarship. Danny crashed into a wall, not of opposing linemen but of crows. There were hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, each one a foot in height, with a wing span well over twice that. The weight and velocity of the flock knocked the wind from Danny’s lungs and sent him tumbling, holes in his forearms where the fowl had pecked him. He smeared the rivulets of blood with his fingers.
When he looked up, Danny saw the birds perch on Sean. He hopped to his feet, got two steps before Robby rose up and blocked his path.
“Forget it, he’s gone!” Robby cried, trying to make himself heard over the chirping and cawing of the hellish flock. His was no longer the face of superior confidence, it was the face of a man scared shitless in an Irwin Allen disaster. His words were just as cliché, but when Danny looked back at Sean he could think of none better to describe the scene.
Sean was gone.
A fluttering black mound of feathers and beaks covered him utterly. His rocking, arching spasms faded and his arms stopped their wild flailing. Even his screams, muted beneath the volume of the flock, had ceased. It was as if David Copperfield had performed an act of teleportation. Any moment now, with a snap of fingers, the flock would fly back into the fog, revealing no wires, no mirrors, and no Sean. And yet, as the crows flapped about, Danny could still see something beneath them, blurred and unclear thro
ugh the flurry and commotion, a nearly indescribable form. It could have been anyone. But it wasn’t.
“Sean,” Danny whispered. Robby pushed on his chest, tried to force him back, but his feet were set and he stared at the crows for a long, motionless second. He could taste his own fear as it rose up the back of his throat and stung his gullet.
Red fountains welled up, stained the flawless sable blanket. One of the crows hopped from the flock and onto the ground, its feathers covered in a crimson slick; matted, stuck together, useless. It twitched its head and flapped its wings, flung bloody droplets in every direction as it tried to take flight. From its beak, a length of small intestine hung like a huge red earthworm, snaked its way beneath the down cover and into Sean’s open abdomen.
They’re eating him, Danny’s mind screamed. What the fuck is that?
When several birds took to the air, something rolled out from under the flapping mound. Sean’s head. The connective tissues had been pecked away, orphaning his skull from the rest of his body. It rolled over twice, then came to a stop, the naked point of its chin in the air. The eyes were now gaping craters gathering blood, the ears ragged banners, the nose a ridge of pitted tissue. Fleshy curtains of lip had been ripped away, leaving polished teeth in a naked, glistening jawbone.
“No,” Danny said, not noticing the tears that rolled from his eyes. “Jesus, Mary, no.”
His feet moved now as Robby continued to push, but Danny was unaware of it. He was being carried away from the man-eating crows, away from the red bird with the huge worm in its beak, away from the rolling skull that had been his best friend, and, most importantly, away from the edge of insanity.
For that, Danny was grateful.
A moment later, he ran blindly into the haze, his legs pumping as if he were returning the ball for a touchdown. But this was no game, not anymore. He ran for his life, and he wasn’t alone.
***
Paul laid on top of Deidra, pushed her flat against the ground. He glanced at the flock, saw Sean’s gut droop from the beak of a crow, and felt his stomach crawl.
What’s a flock of crows called?
He closed his eyes and screamed into Deidra’s ear. “We’re gonna get outta this! I want you to get on your knees and –”
“I can’t move.”
“Yes, you can. We’re gonna crawl out from under these birds –”
“I can’t!”
“You have to! You’re gonna crawl out from under these birds, then you’re gonna take off running! I’ll be with you the whole time, I swear!” He opened his eyes, looked around to make certain the path was clear. “Ready?”
“No.”
Paul ignored her. If he waited for her to say yes, the crows might feather nests with their innards. “One ... Two ...” He shot a glance left, then right, as if they were about to cross the street. The way was still clear. “Three!”
Paul slid off Deidra’s back onto his knees, pulled her up off the dirt. He crawled forward, tugged on the back of her shirt as he moved. After a few moments, she pulled even with him and was about to pass him by.
The video camera sat on the ground in front of them. Paul reached out and grabbed it, pointed its light away from the bloody scene behind them, illuminated the fog ahead. The way still seemed clear.
Now, with some distance between them and the attacking crows, Paul felt they could safely make their run. He staggered to his feet, pulled Deidra up with him. “Run, Deidra! Run!”
She shook her head. “Paul, I’m scared. I saw it out there! I saw it!”
“I’m scared too,” he told her. It was the truth. “Grab my shirt and hold on, it’s gonna be okay.” He didn’t know if he believed that last part. Something inside him wondered if anything could ever be okay again. But it was enough to get her moving. Deidra grabbed hold of the back of his shirt and they bolted into the mist, the spotlight from the camcorder lighting their way.
Paul heard something behind them; it plowed a path through the corn like a tractor, gaining momentum as it closed in on them. Some voyeuristic urge made him want to see it, made him jerk his head around, made him look into the fog.
There were shapes there, just beyond the reach of his camcorder light. He saw them shift in the murk, but they had no real definition. His eyes flitted from one stain in the haze to the next. They could be anything, anything at all. Part of his mind told him that he didn’t want to see what they were, that he was better off not knowing. This part was joined by a screaming voice in his cranium, a voice that told him to watch where he was going and to run like hell.
He listened.
When Paul looked forward again, figures rushed into the light and he nearly screamed. Deidra did.
One of the figures put a hand up to its face. “Who’s that?”
Robby’s voice.
“Paul and Deidra.” Paul lowered his light a bit so as not to blind his friend.
The second figure was Danny. He waved them toward a structure ahead. “This way!”
Paul couldn’t tell what the building was. Its dark turrets loomed from the fog like the battlements of a Scottish castle. He followed Danny and Robby toward it, his pace quickening now that his legs had a goal, a finish line they had to cross. And, as he drew closer, Paul saw that the towers were grain elevators; red paint had flaked away, patches of naked metal shining in the spotlight. There were four towers, rust-encrusted ladders ran up their sides, metal domes capped them like miners’ helmets, and between them stood a building that was more shed than barn. Paul fixed his eyes on the doors that marked its entrance, hauling Deidra by her arm.
“Come on!” he cried, thinking: We’ve got to get inside. It’ll be safe inside. The birds and whatever’s chasing us, whatever it is that killed Dale can’t get us inside. Inside. Inside. Inside. Inside.
In a moment they were all at the door. Danny threw it wide open and shouted, “Everybody in!”
Paul held them back. “Hold on a second.”
The interior was dark and cold. There could be something waiting for them.
The Beast!
Something that sent the crows ...
The million eyes!
... like a fluttering, black snowplow to push them here ... to herd them to the slaughter.
The Beast With A Million Eyes!
This morning, it would have been a crazy notion. Now, it didn’t seem insane at all.
Paul took a step into the shed, swept the interior with the camcorder spotlight. A lawnmower sat next to the door, an Indian head logo smiling up at him from its Tecumseh engine. The walls were rotting wooden boards covered in tools; shovels, pitchforks, and rakes. Two windows looked out from the back wall, their glass panes opaque with grime. There were tracks in the mud floor, the perfect imprints of burdened tire treads. Whoever owned this shed, whoever owned the grain in the surrounding silos, had taken a load and gone for the night.
They were alone.
Strange how the thought of being alone with Deidra had filled him with so much joy twenty-four short hours ago. Now, the same idea chilled him to the bone.
Paul pulled her by the arm. “It’s clear.”
“I saw it,” she told him. “I saw it!”
Paul fought to keep the screams in his own mind from reaching his lips. “It” was such a vague term. Had she seen blood spurt between black feathers? Seen Sean’s guts spill from the birds’ beaks? Or had she seen the dark shapes chase after them, herd them? He’d seen it all. Too much of it. If they were going to get out of this alive, they had to stay calm.
Danny strained to push the door closed. “A little light!”
Paul aimed his spotlight at the entrance. A wooden plank had been screwed into the door and a wooden “U” jutted from the frame. Danny spun the board until the “U” grabbed it, barring the door shut. He then stepped back into the shed, stared pacing like a caged animal.
“This thing ... in the fog,” Deidra went on. “I saw it!”
Paul turned the spotlight on Deidra, saw
her tremble, and moved to hold her. “It’s okay.”
“Oh God!” Her eyes were the widest he’d ever seen them. “I think it knew I saw it!”
“Deidra, what –?”
“It had wings and ... it looked at me!”
Paul grabbed the sides of her head and tilted her face toward his. “Deidra!”
She blinked at him and her eyes began to focus. “I saw it,” she repeated, her voice soft as a whisper, watery lines drawn down her cheeks.
Paul spoke slowly and distinctly. “What did you see?”
Through tears Deidra said, “Mondamin.”
They shared a quiet moment, stared into each other’s faces, then Deidra brought her hands to her mouth and moaned into them. Paul held her tightly to him, rubbed her back, and felt the sobs surge through her. She was so cold.
“What the hell does that mean?” Robby asked with angry confusion.
Paul continued to run his hand across Deidra’s back as she cried into his shoulder. “It’s a Miami Indian word for ‘corn spirit.’”
“There’s a word for corn spirit?”
Paul didn’t respond. He looked down at the camera. “I’m gonna power down the camcorder,” he announced, “Turn off the light.”
Deidra shook her head. “No!”
“There could be a killer out there right now,” he said. “And even if there isn’t, we still have to worry about those crows. If they see the light coming from under the door or through the windows, they’ll know we’re in here. Besides, if I don’t do it, the battery’s gonna be dead and we won’t have light when we need it.”
She shuddered in his arms. “I can’t be here in the dark. I won’t be able to see.”
“Sean was afraid of the dark,” Danny blurted.
Paul and Robby’s eyes snapped to him.
“He had to go to the basement when the tornadoes went through in ’79. The power goes out and he’s down in the dark listening to the thing go right by his house ...”