The Trophy Room

I don’t count owls as birds. Bluejays, cardinals, even the blackest raven don’t bother me at all. It’s the creatures that roll their necks around to the back of their heads like someone possessed by a demon. The monsters that screech in the dead of night like a woman being quickly spread out on a torture rack. The devils that spread their wings and flew, like a specter, just to sit there and watch you with their dead yellow eyes. The carrier pigeons from hell: the owl. They bother me.

I was pretty indifferent to owls until the night I was certain I was going to die. Just me, alone, in the middle of the Ozarks, trying to escape my monotonous 9-5 for a few days. Shed the suit. Brave the elements.

I had asked my wife, Joan, if she had wanted to go. We go everywhere together, but lately, things have been so busy. I gave her my location, but I’m not even sure that she wrote it down.

I had fallen asleep to a calming chorus of chirping crickets and the light of the full moon. I awoke to the growling roar of some distant, tramping beast. Its heavy footsteps thundered through the forest. Nearly every step of the rapidly-approaching animal seemed to coincide with the sound of a woman screaming out with intensely wretched pain.

I was too scared to go out and help her. I thought I was alone. And in the moment, I had to think about myself.

I sat there in the dark, the moon hidden away by clouds, in the center of my tent grasping a pocket knife and holding my breath.

I felt the bristly indentation of fur against plastic as the side of the tent bulged in toward me. Whatever it was, it had laid down to rest.

I cried that night. With each near-silent sob, that woman continued to screech. The longer I heard those yelps, the closer the voice seemed to become like Joan’s. Images of a faceless woman, lying on the ground, intestines flung around the dirt and her arms shredded to thousands of pieces while she slowly bled out went in and out of my mind.

Over time, the facelessness shifted. It became Joan. Its hair grew brown with curls just at its fringes. Her eyes changed from empty sockets to large, hazel ovals. A large birthmark was splashed on her neck.

I’d be like that soon. I’d be the imaginary Joan. Just one movement and the beast would rip me to pieces.

Until the light of day, I sat still with that pocket knife close to my chest. I knew it couldn’t do anything to protect me. When day broke, the bulge in the tent shifted, and the animal trotted off without a single bark or bite. I was alive. Yet the woman kept on bellowing out unintelligible sounds. I’d wait a few minutes to make sure the bear or boar that had slept next to me was far enough away, then do the best I could to help the dying person.

I unzipped my tent, stepped outside, and looked around for the woman. The piercing, loud-pitched death call came from directly above me. Had Joan teleported here? That was her voice.

Perched low in a tree, staring right at me with rapidly blinking yellow eyes, tilting and bending its circular head, it opened up its beak and let out the loudest screech yet. With that, it spread its brownish-white feathered wings and took flight.

It wasn’t at that moment that I felt anything toward the owl. Just feelings of naivety and disappointment in myself that I had thought it was a person. That I had thought it was Joan. That I was too much of a coward to help her.

As time went on, anytime I heard a bird chirp outside my window or on the off-chance that someone would mention an offhand comment about a bird, it would bring me right back to that memory of that owl mocking me in the tree.

The thought that an owl traumatized me was sickening. It pained me. I started buying books. I consumed all forms of media I could get my hands on. I would find and digest anything that had even the slightest reference to an owl. I started buying feathers online and putting them under a microscope – writing down every little observation I could and then carefully putting them in a cardboard box that I’d seal and reseal each time I added a new feather to my collection. I needed to know my enemy, and more importantly, find that particular owl that had brought me to this.

The more research I conducted, the more I thought about that owl in the Ozarks. Once I found that owl, I would be ok. I’d forget about it.

It started by taking a few trips out to the Ozarks.

“Just going out on a hike for a few days,” I said to Joan.

“Where,” she said, as she was cutting up a few raw carrots.

“The Ozarks.”

“Always talking about the Ozarks,” she said.

That scream. Just for a moment. I looked around the room. Was she back?

“Ahh,” Joan screamed.

That scream. Just for a moment. I looked around the room. Was she back?

“I cut one of my fingers. Will you get me a band-aid or something? It’s bleeding a lot.”

It took me a moment till I was able to get up and leave. I came back with a box of band-aids.

“You alright,” Joan asked. “You look really concerned.”

I handed her the box. “I’m just thinking about when we go out to the Ozarks.”

“Ok weirdo,” she said. “Have fun on your trip. Be safe.”

It was six hours one-way if I sped. And the closer I got to those winding forested roads when the sun was just beginning to set and bleed through the tiny separations of wooded forest, the faster I’d turn the wheel at every corner.

I parked my car at the end of one of those perilous rock-filled dirt roads that led to the trailhead. A few steps in, and I heard that distinct, tortured, and drawn-out call of the owl. It was close. Was it her?

I heard the call again. From above. I looked up; the blinding LED headlamp illuminating the rustling boughs slightly shaking from a weak gust of wind. There, in the tree, was an owl. I looked down to unholster my pistol, and with that, the branches above seemed to shudder and bend from a shifting weight. I looked up again; the owl had taken flight. I shot in its direction and heard it wrench out a scream. It was the release of the dying. But it was not her scream. I would know when it was her.

Joan, she’d still be in danger.

I was able to pick up the corpse and was just able to stuff it in my backpack. Maybe, if I kept her relatives with me, then she would feel the need for revenge. She’d come to me.

I threw the carcass into a cardboard box I had brought with me in the off-chance that I did find her then waited till morning. I thought I could smell something sickeningly sweet that was starting to fill in the car. Maybe, I had left a banana peel or something in the car while I was out in the woods.

In reality, the owl had started to decay. I rushed over to a sporting goods store to buy some kind of a display case. Maybe, I’d get the owl stuffed.

Inside, I saw a fat-headed buffalo, a doe, and two antlered deer plastered on the wall in the center of the hunting and game section. It was there where I knew there was no better punishment, no better way to bring her to me than propping her relatives’ heads right on my walls. It was there, on that morning, where I bought the smallest mount I could buy and a machete to build my first trophy when I got back home.

A half-hour before I pulled into my driveway, I thought about what I could do with the trophy so I wouldn’t scare Joan. I decided the best course of action was to immediately build the mount and rent out a storage unit until I could find a more permanent place to keep them.

So I drove to one of those expansive supermarket parking lots and parked my car way in the back near a wooded section. I walked into the store, bought some super glue, and then went back to my car to retrieve the owl. A wave of that tangy rot breezed right into my nostrils. I quickly slammed the trunk shut so it wouldn’t carry over to any of the other cars far off in the main lot. I carried the cardboard box the three feet I needed to get into the woods. With a few swings, I fully decapitated the owl. I lathered on the super glue and stuck the head on. I held the plaque against my side so it looked like a simple wooden plaque. I skinned the rest of the headless body and tucked the bloody pile of skin under my shirt so no one would know it was there. I couldn’t let any piece of her go to waste. Just one stray part may bring her elsewhere.

The storage unit was a temporary solution. But I needed to bring her to me. Not to a bunch of metal boxes thrown together off the highway. With time, I became more and more skilled at building and mounting trophies. I felt like I was getting closer to her.

One kill became two. Two, four. Four, eight…

They bother me.

With each kill, I would wrap the skin in a plastic bag and stuff it with two or three of those pine tree-shaped air fresheners. By my fourth or fifth kill, the storage unit had begun to stink so bad that the air fresheners wouldn’t work. I fixed that by buying one of those glass trophy cases at the sporting goods store and only unsealing the skins when I had a new one to add.

The storage unit was starting to fill up. I needed space. I was tired of putting away my bait in a way where it couldn’t be used as such.

“Would you ever think about moving closer to the Ozarks,” I asked Joan one night.

“Why would we do that?”

“It’s beautiful down there,” I said.

“I am getting sick of it here, and we’ve always talked about moving to someplace closer to nature,” she looked me over and squinted her eyes. “And, honestly, it might not be bad to get a change of pace anyways. You’ve been looking run-down a lot lately.”

“I’m sure I’ll feel better knowing I’m closer to nature,” I said.

Joan got up from the table. She stood over me, both eyes studying each one of my eyes back and forth back and forth. “Just tell me if anything ever becomes overwhelming for you, ok. I know the job is tough. But I’m here for you.”

But was I here for her?

A few months later, we bought a big old house thirty minutes away from the trail where I had first seen her. There was a dilapidated barn on the property that might entice her to visit if I ever collected enough trophies.

Joan was too busy to tour the house with me, and I moved in a little earlier than she did. I needed to find a place to put my trophies while she was away. The interior had a large storage room near the kitchen, and the day I fully owned the property, I contracted a carpenter to build one of those bookcases that you’d see in the movies. The kind where the removal of a single book could activate a lever and slide open the whole unit revealing a secret room. The first two carpenters thought I was crazy, the second of whom laughed right in my face and said to move back to Transylvania.

But I did get someone to do it. And so, the trophy room came to be. Joan hated dirt, grime, and any form of uncleanliness, so I chose the book switch to be the dankest, most disgusting paperback book I could find from the local thrift shop. Hidden in plain sight, she would never examine, let alone, pick up the book. My trophy room would be mine. Mine and hers. Joan would be safe.

By the time Joan had moved in, I had not only gotten the bookcase switch to work but also transported all of my trophies from the storage unit into the room, mounted each of them (there were now 20 in total, including two that I had made while exploring the barn during the evening), painted the room a rich forest green, bought a cheap mahogany table that I put the fully stuffed glass case on, purchased a chair for me to sit in and rest comfortably while I waited for her to arrive, and put in a mirror near the corner of the room so I could always keep an eye on the closed bookcase behind me.

The day Joan arrived was the day that I knew she was close.

“I need to go to the sports store,” I said to Joan, five minutes after she put her bags down.

“What, now,” she asked, grimacing. “But I just got here.”

“I know, but,” I started. “I just. I just have to order something. It will only take a few minutes.”

Joan stared into me. I had to say something.

“Ok. Ok. I really missed you and wanted to get you a gift. It’s a surprise, though. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.”

She smiled. Her shoulders, noticeably tight before, slackened. “Is that why you’ve been acting so weird? You’ve always been terrible about surprises.”

“I think I've gotten better. You’ll still have to wait a few days for me to prep the whole gift,” I said, grabbing my car keys. “Oh, and by the way, did you remember to bring that box I had left at the house. It was a sealed-up cardboard one. It’s probably been there so long there’s dust on it now. I sealed it up when I first started taking trips out here.”

“Yeah, it’s in the car. I’ll put it right in front of your fancy bookcase for when you’re back. Speaking of which…”

“Yeah,” I said.

That book,” she said pointing at the gnarled book that would open the door to the trophy room. “I think there’s mold that’s starting to grow on it.”

“There’s still a bit of life in it,” I said. I walked over and grabbed her right around her bulbous waist. “Just a bit longer; my collection is almost complete. Once I get that last piece, you’ll never have to worry about this kind of thing again.”

“One day, I’m going to just take that book right off the shelf and throw it in the garbage,” she said, kissing me. She looked at me and smiled. “Hurry up and finish that collection because I don’t want to touch that thing. Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you that the box of colored contacts you ordered came in. They shipped it to our address back home and I drove them down. Why would you buy yellow contacts? Weirdo…”

“We have a gag going on at the office. The guys are going to think that what I have going on will be a hoot.”

“Your special mount finally came in,” the sporting goods store employee said, squatting down underneath the counter and dropping a big cardboard box right onto the counter. “Can’t believe you’re finally moving on to bigger game. Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Well,” I said. “We’ve all got to call it quits sometime. I think my collection has reached its pinnacle, and at this point, I need something to really make all those birds I’ve collected over the last few months stand out.”

I told Joan I had some work to catch up on and went into my study proper, locking the door and waiting to hear her footsteps settle upstairs.

When the upstairs creaking finally ended, I rushed across the hallway, pulled the paperback book, and pushed the cardboard box into the trophy room. I cut open the box and took out my old microscope and feathers. It was time to start studying again. The time was drawing near.

As I was feeling the coarse texture of one of my best-preserved feathers, I thought I had heard something. A scratching from the trophy case. She was in the trophy case. She was fluttering around. She screamed. It was her. She was here. I grabbed my pistol. And shot at her. The glass shattered. And I heard Joan’s feet thump against the floor above me.

“What happened,” I heard her yelling from upstairs.

I grabbed some broken glass and crushed it in my hands. The cuts let the blood flow. I could inspect the corpse later. I rushed out of the trophy room and stood right in front of the bookcase.

“What happened,” Joan repeated. “It sounded like someone just shot something.”

“I dropped a wine glass,” I said, showing her my cut-up hands. “I’ll be ok.”

“Are you drunk,” she asked me.

“Yeah,” I lied. “I’ll just clean up this mess and be right up to bed. “I’m celebrating. Got a little carried away.”

“Celebrating what?”

“You being here. Safe.”

“Uhh ok, weirdo,” she said. “I’ll be celebrating when you finally throw out that nasty book you’re dripping blood on.”

When she left me, I went back into the trophy room to collect my trophy. To finally end it. All the lies. All the running around. All the butchery to keep Joan safe. In the glass case, was just a bunch of owl skin. She wasn’t there. Maybe I missed. I’d need to find a way to keep her here long enough. Really attract her. I grabbed the skins, which had now begun melting together from the always-sticky unfiltered air of the trophy room and glass case. I’d trick her. She’ll think I’m one of her own.

Today is the day. Joan just went to work. I told her I wasn’t feeling well and that I would take it easy today. When she left, I went right to the trophy room. That sickly rot smell permeates the room.

Today is the day. I feel it in the way that I have always felt like I have found her. She bothers me. I put in my yellow colored contact lenses in front of the mirror of the trophy room. In the mirror, I still look too much like myself. I wouldn’t be able to fool her. I go to the laundry room and pick up four wooden clothespins from on top of the washing machine. I fasten them to both the top and bottom folds of skin on my eyelids.

I placed the lump of skin on the table and cut it in half with the machete. I put the first half across my shoulders and place the second half on my head like a crown of feathers. But there was still exposed skin, she would know it was me.

A knock on the front door, no? She couldn’t be here yet, I wasn’t fully disguised.

I rushed over to my box of feathers and began slathering super glue all over my arms and the remaining portions of exposed skin on my face. I quickly stuck feather after feather to my face.

“God, I can’t take this smell anymore,” I thought I heard Joan say from somewhere in the house. But that was impossible; she was at work.

I sat in my chair waiting for the glue to dry. I could feel it harden. I looked in the mirror and watched as the bookcase door behind me pulled to the side.

With that, a distant scream. Was that Joan screaming? I wouldn’t sit like a coward again. She was mocking me. It was her. She was screaming at me. Right there. Right in front of me. I grabbed the pistol and shot her.

When her last scream subsided, I grabbed my machete and removed her head. It was odd, though. I never noticed that she had hazel eyes.