Chapter Three

By Katie Heffring

“What the damn hell is it?” Nort sniffs, “And what’s that fucking smell?”

Sizzling smoke rises from a massive black heap.  In one motion, we all step closer.  Our guns ready.

Black feathers. Nort crouches down and attempts to grab my rifle.  I pull it away.

“Come on, Sega.  I’ll give it back in a sec…geez.”

Reluctantly I give it to him.  I suppose it doesn’t matter really. I’ve got a Bowie knife nicely tucked inside the back of my right boot.  But still.

With the muzzle of my rifle, Nort manages to turn the feathery black mass onto its back.

“Ack!”  Nort and I gasp in unison.  We all fall back covering our faces from the horrendous smell.

“What is it?”  Dot asks.  Her voice muffled by her hands.

“Looks like a man dressed in feathers,” Nort smirks as he prods its stomach.

The head of the beastlike bird, a featherless bulbous mass of pink skin, is abnormally tilted. Broken. Its flaming red eyes stare at nothing.  Nort stands up, turns around and hands my rifle to me.

“No worries,” he places a hand on my shoulder, “whatever it was, it is no longer.”

“Typical,” Dot replies and then softly says, “Turn your back just when it starts getting good.”

She catches my eye and quickly nods to a black flickering object in the sky.  The image of a bird with a remarkable wingspan comes closer into view.  It looks exactly like the corpse lying in front of us.

“Huh?”  Nort begins to turn around when I interrupt him.

“Don’t move a single step,” I whisper as I position my rifle on my shoulder and follow the bird beast’s movement, “No…body…move.”

“I got your back,” Dot whispers.

It swoops gracefully down and perches on a piece of the wreckage.  Blood stains the black feathers around its neck.  The bird beast raises its small hooked beak and calls.  A whining, moaning sound emerges.

“What the fuck?”  Nort gasps under his breath.  His back still faces the creature.

“Shhhh,” Dot hushes him.

The bird beast’s gleaming red eyes scan the surface.  We remain as statues fifty-feet away.  All is silent save for the soft click of my rifle’s target laser.

Immediately, the bird beast cocks its ugly head to one side.  Then it looks down at its chest, following the red beam to me.  A large drop of blood seeps from one of its nostrils.  Before the drop hits the ground four shots are fired.  Four bird beasts drop dead from the sky.

One lands between me and my target.  I lose my focus.  At that moment, the threatening bird beast launches at me, its mighty wings spread and talons open wide.  The attack is so quick I have no time to react.  But Nort does, and with one clear shot to the head, the creature falls back.  Dead.

“Damn,” I say to myself.

Nort gives me a hand, wiggling his fingers at me.  “Here.”

I take it and he pulls me up. “Thanks…I didn’t even see those other birds coming!  Nice shots.”

“Don’t look at me.  It was Dot,” Nort points his thumb at Dot, who has her lazer gun pointed at nothing in particular.

With one hand, she pulls the long black strands of her hair behind her ear, “Not me, Nort. It was something else…or someone.”

“Dot!  What the…,” but before Nort can finish, a man’s voice interrupts.

“T’was I, ya frrrrreekin’ wankerrr!”