Birds

Normally it sucks, but today it’s a good thing we live farthest away from school. After hearing reports on the radio about birds attacking people, we decided that there was no way this was real. My father, brother, sister, and I continued to head to my basketball game at the local high school, when suddenly small a dot in the distance met our windshield with a thud. It was a crow.

“We’re going home” dad said, as he turned the truck around. We watched a couple of rumpled feathers dance across the windshield, elegantly avoiding the spot of blood the crow had left. He headed towards home, feeding the truck more gas this time.

It was already starting to get dark outside, but this didn’t make any sense. I glanced behind us and saw a storm cloud, but it looked a little darker than normal. I started to stare and soon realized this was no cloud, but a storm was definitely coming.

“Dad! They're behind us!“ He acted like he didn’t hear me and kept focused on driving. We were nearly home now. They weren't exactly following us, but they were getting closer, twisting and folding the flock in on itself as they were repositioning themselves.

We had made it home. My father had drove the vehicle closer to the front door this time and flashed us the furrowed brow “get out” look, but It didn’t matter. We had already opened our doors and were leaning on each other to get out. As my father, who was the last one to make it in closed the door, crashing sounds came from the front of the house. Two blows on the front window, one right after the other sent a spiderweb of cracks through the clear glass. No one moved as we all had observed what had happened and were too scared to even make a sound.

My father turned his head to us. telling us to run downstairs. He meant the basement. All at once the three of us turned and ran as fast as we could to the door to downstairs. I heard the deadbolt behind us. There was a cat door for Seamus, but there was no way we were going to make it back through. I opened the cat door to see him grab the blanket that’s been on the couch and run to the front door. It was much darker now. And you could hear the horde gathering overhead.

“I left my phone.” he muttered.

My Father took a breath and opened the door. He bolted through covering his face with a blanket, slamming it shut behind him. Huddled by the door we could only wait for him to come back.

A panicked howl was blasted by the door. It was Dad.

As I stared through the cat door, I could see tiny eyes peeking back through while wings were beating against the window. I could barely see outside.

The door flung open. It was Dad, screaming with the blanket wrapped around his head laved in blood. He was throwing his hands wildly in the air, with a mess of wings and flapping above, and all around him. He began to throw blood all around. I could smell the foul, unclean air as I watched the demise of my father through the cat door.

The birds were relentless, picking at my father, his eyes his lips, and ears. He fell over as the door swung wildly, and the swarm let itself in. I had to stop looking.