"You ever seen The Birds? The old Hitchcock flick? Probably not, too young. I saw it back in '65, the night of the big NYC blackout. Not the bad one, that one was in '77. I was in the city for that. We lived outside the city then in Connecticut, and my parents had gone for a night out. Left me with a sitter who spent the evening smoking pot on the back porch and using our phone to call her boyfriend. She let me have free reign of the TV, and it just so happened that movie was on that night. Just as it got to the bloody part, when then birds were going for people's eyes, the lights go out and I start screaming up and down the house. Didn't stop crying 'til my parents got home. 'Bout the scaredest I've ever been in my life, up until '77. I'd moved to the city by then, got a government job. I was in Brooklyn when the lights went out, in a basement watching some underground DJ that never made it. Me and my friends decided to try and make it back home to Manhattan, so we started walking to the bridge. It was very calm at first, mostly just people walking in little groups through the dark, some of them even singing. Then we rounded a corner and saw the light flickering from down the road, shadows dancing on the asphalt. We kept walking and then we finally saw it, a great conflagration someone had lit, mounds of trash and debris heaped on the skeleton of the car. Shirts, it was. Shirts and pants. People were dancing around it, other's running up with handfuls of debris and throwing it in. There was a short man watching from a distance, holding a shotgun pointed at no one. He stood in front of a store with busted windows, a line of shirts and pants trailing out of the holes. He just stood there, impotent, as more people grabbed the clothes and tossed them into the fire, his life's work. I made it home safe that night, but I decided to get out of the city after that. Moved down to North Carolina, got a job with IBM making great money. Got myself a nice house by the river and started becoming a bit of a prepper. Custom basement with air and water filtration, couple years worth a food, a ton of guns and ammo. I was more than ready when the Wave came. People around me weren't, and they were pretty scared the nuke plant was going to go, so they moved on. I stayed, and for a while I had it all to myself. I had a little project trying to make a generator using an old car alternator and the river, but otherwise I got kind of bored. One day, after I'd checked all my rabbit traps and got through with my chores, I decided I wanted to get a tan. It was a warm day, but not hot, a little breeze on the air. I rolled up a doobie from some grass I had stashed away and laid out in my backyard butt naked, just watching the trees sway in the wind and soaking in the sun. Dozed off sometime in the early afternoon, and when I woke the sun was starting to dip below the treeline. I thought the color the trees was from it starting to get dark, then I noticed the wings. Birds, hundreds of them. So many they weighed down the trees. I had spent so much time and money trying to be prepared, to be ready when the enemy finally came calling, but I had to face them down unarmed and bare-assed. At least that shop owner had a gun, and his dick wasn't out. That was the first thing they went for, when I tried to cover my eyes. I guess that's the choice we all have to make eventually. Dick or eyes."
-from "The Way Back: An Oral History of the Dark Years in America" by Brooks Gaillen
September 29th, 2012
She went to bed tired and hungry, doing her best to embrace the new normal. The next morning brought more of the same. A little bit of oatmeal, then trying to wash out their bowls with the smallest amount of water they could manage. She kept trying to get more water, but her mother would swat her hand every time. A part her wanted to hit her mother for that, right in the back of the knee.
How was she supposed to get the sticky, nasty bowl clean without water? Everything was so disgusting now. Her clothes, her hair, her skin, everything. She hadn't washed since last week when her mother took her Lex into the backyard and washed them down with rainwater. Lex had gone first, and he got a proper rinse.
It had been so cold that she'd been glad when her mother ran out of water, but she hated the soapy feeling that got left on her skin, followed by the itching. Now her bowl was just like that, half-rinsed. Did she have to eat out of something disgusting too?
After one more attempt to get more water, Simone finally went back to her tent and started taking it down. Within the hour they were on the road, heading north through the mountain pass with the rest of group. They stuck near Bart's family, taking rides on the cart when they could. Lex and Alicia walked side-by-side, talking for hours about games they could no longer play.
They stopped at an animal hospital in the morning, a few from their group heading in to grab antibiotics and pain killers. It had already been raided, but not very well. They were able to grab a few bottles of Gabapentin and Amoxycillin, as well as a partial bottle Doxycycline. The whole time they looked Simone sat outside, wondering what Sam was up to. She knew he'd find food. He was a big cat, always coming home with gifts, but that wasn't what she was worried about.
The world was off, too quiet. Still no birds, no squirrels or chipmunks, no stray dogs. Even the cicadas seemed afraid that day. The absence of their buzzing echoed in her brain, spiraling into new lines of thought that had the hair on her neck standing.
They made it to Waynesboro by midday, turning northeast to avoid the city center. They walked passed house after house, picking up more people as they went. The houses here weren't abandoned like they were in her neighborhood, and were for less inviting for it. Every one had been turned into a makeshift fortress, every opening boarded up and blocked with whatever they could find.
Plywood signs painted with a dozen different colors proclaimed the buildings off limits, with any trespassers forfeiting their right to life. Most of wood seemed to come from a few partially burnt houses, their unburnt interiors open to the world. No one gave them trouble though, they just slowly shuffled out from hidden exits, making sure to lock up behind them before they joined their procession.
They stopped for lunch in North Park, not far from their destination. She'd been there before, killing time in the middle of the day while her mother ran errands. The squirrels had been so friendly, nearly jumping on her shoes in their attempts to beg for food. She looked up, scanned the trees. Her stomach dropped, even as she ate. No squirrels.
She tried to tell her mom about it once they got back on the road, but she couldn't. Her mom had that look on her face again, the look that said she would deal with no one until the awful task was complete. She'd learned that look from spats of anger and gnashing teeth, along with the threat of a wooden spoon, even more so than her father.
Just one of mom's many traps that she had to walk around, though a part of her loved to step on them. That look stayed on her mom's face even as they shifted from pavement to dirt and grass, the town of Waynesboro opening up into a collage of family farms that spanned for miles. The first few had signs up saying they had no more work, but they expected that. Those positions were probably filled that morning while they were walking.
A person at the entrance to each farm just waved them north, said if they kept walking they'd find an open spot. All the farms in the area were desperate for help. Simone was fine with it. She didn't want to end up picking at a cotton farm or soybean plantation. Probably wouldn't get any good food out of that, and they really needed it. They'd picked up a couple along the way, but they only had a little over a dozen cans left, and a half-empty container of oatmeal.
They had to walk for another hour, but eventually they came to a dirt road with a ramshackle sign hanging in a large archway. "Durbin Acres" it said, and there was a woman who looked to be in her 60's waiting at the entrance with a herd counter clicking away in her hand.
"C'mon y'all, get in here! We got loads of corn for whoever wants to pick it!" Her voice was powerful, but you could tell by the rasp she had been going at it since the morning.
"Got maybe 40-50 more spots left then I gotta close it up! They got more spots up the road, but this is the last place you'll get any corn!"
They followed Bart as he turned his cart into the road, but the lady jumped out of her chair and stopped them before they could get past the archway.
"Well hey-now old timer! I hope you ain't expecting to fill them carts up with ears. You're bringing quite a few hands I see, but we've got to distribute it fairly."
Bart raised his hand. "Oh, don'tcha worry 'bout that, we don't expect to fill the cart. Don't think the kiddies would like sitting on corn anyhow. We'll take our fair share just like everyone else." He pointed back at the smaller children and their carts.
"The kids can pick too, right?"
The lady sat back down with a plop. "Oh absolutely. My boys been pickin' since they was 7, so I don't see why not. If anyone wants to crow over child labor laws they can walk their ass down to Richmond, see what they got to say about it."
She waved them on with a morose chuckle, clicking away as each one passed under the archway.
They walked down the dirt path a ways, keeping track of the signs and people as they passed. First intersection had sign showing fields 1-3 to the left, but a young man waved them on saying they were full. They kept walking down the road till they got to field 8, where a middle age woman waved them in.
The field looked to be about a quarter picked, people with baskets shuffling down the rows and putting ears in baskets, while teams of men came behind them and sheared the stalks with rusty scythes and machetes. Other teams of men pulled carts that wheeled away alternating loads of ears and stalks over the hill to the barns.
Bart and his boys parked their cart along the road and started making their way down to the field. Her father followed them, while her mother led Lex and the other children to a young man with homemade crutches sitting next to a small pile of baskets.
"Y'all here to pick?" He sat up, scanning the small group of women and children.
"We are." Her mother eyed the thin young man for a moment, then looked out onto the field.
"Where should we start?"
He pointed to the far side of field, the side yet untouched by the previous pickers. "You can start in the far corner there, meet the rest of 'em in the middle. Think with y'all here now we can get this field knocked out before dark."
"I certainly hope so." She strolled past the man, ignoring the small basket he offered her.
"C'mon children, grab a basket. We've wasted enough daylight as it is." She handed out baskets and they made their way to the far corner of the field, avoiding the tall men with scythes that looked like grim reapers on offseason work detail.
Simone looked over at her brother, Alicia, and Bart's grandchildren. They smiled as the sun came out from behind a cloud, a sudden wind rustling Alicia's frizzy hair. A couple of Bart's grandkids were skipping, holding hands. She wished she could share their joy, but she couldn't shake that nagging feeling in her stomach.
Even with all the people around talking, yelling, laughing, the emptiness of the world screamed at her like a scared baby at the end of a long, dark hallway. None of these people had their pets either. No sheep dogs or barn cats. Her swirled around, trying to find some sign of animal life. No squirrels or chipmunks or mice trying to get at the corn. She turned up, scanning the horizon, the trees. No birds, no...
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She stopped. Far past the fields, where the farmland finally gave way to forest, one pine tree rose above the rest. At its peak a black dot rested, easily dismissed if not for the distinct flapping of wings. A bird, some kind of blackbird.
A crow perhaps.
She expected the tension to release, to finally feel some kind of relief once she finally found some sign of life, but the knot in her stomach only twisted tighter. Her dream, the vision she had in the midst of her seizure, flashed through her mind. That beady black eye was on her once again.
Lex tugged at her arm. "C'mon, Simi. Mom's leaving us behind." He followed her eyeline, looking out at the trees. "What are you looking at?"
She pulled away, following the other kids to where her mother had started picking. "Nothing. Let's go."
"You need someone to show you how to pick?" A heavyset man in overalls was taking a break from loading stalks in a cart to give them some attention.
"Or the young 'uns at least?"
"I have some experience. I can show the children." Her mother shot him a look and he quickly returned to his work.
Alicia's mother and the children gathered around as Simone's mother walked up to the first stalk. "Picking corn is easy, we just have to try and not get in each other's way. Children get the ears down low, adults get the rest." She reached out a grabbed an ear.
"Otherwise, just grab, twist, and pull." She demonstrated, twisting the green bundle sharply and pulling it away, then dropping it smoothly into her baskets.
"Alright let's fan out." Alicia's mother took her daughter and a couple of Bart's grandkids with her.
"The more we pick, the more we all get."
For the next few hours all them were focused on their task, even if it took them a minute to get going. Only Bart's children had any work experience, and the first half hour was mostly spent getting set on their jobs and used to the strain it put on their little fingers. But soon enough they were done with a couple rows, the stalk-gatherers no longer waiting on them.
Even once they found a rhythm and really started working hard, Simone never kept the crow far from her mind. Whenever she had a chance, she checked the treeline. Were there more now? She thought she saw more black dots at the tops of trees, but she never saw the telltale flutter of wings.
The sun was peaking out from between the treetops by the time they were finished with the field, the mosquitoes finally deciding to make their appearance. They dumped their baskets into the farm cart and made their way to the road, making sure to stay close to Bart's cart. His oldest son had something he called a "Thermacell" he would take on hunting trips. He said it would keep the mosquitoes away if they stayed close, and it seemed to work.
It was a long wait, with only the pink and yellow reflection of the sun on clouds remaining, but eventually they made it to the front. A lady sat at a table in front of a barn, carts filled with corn being pulled into by teams of men. Younger men and some women were taking loads of ears from the carts and tying them up into small bundles with rope.
"How many you got in your group? Looks over a dozen?" She looked over Bart and his little cadre of carts, trying to count the kids with her pencil.
"Got seventeen young lady. Me, my son's, his wife and the grandbabies, my baby sister plus these two lovely families." He swept his arm out, indicating Simone and Lex's family as well as Alicia's.
"Been here since 'bout one. Woulda gotten here earlier but you can only move so fast with kids."
She looked from the cart to Bart and then back, checking his math. After doing a bit of math on a small notepad, she looked up to Bart. "23 bundles. Half-day gets two, one for the kids." She tore off the paper from the pad and handed it to Bart.
His face screwed up for a moment. "You sure only one for the kids? My grandbabies are pretty used to farm work. They picked quite a bit for kids."
She gave him flat look, then looked out at his kids again, staring hard at the baby sucking on his bottle and the two infant girls. "Come back tomorrow, still plenty to pick. We'll see if we can get them upgraded. Otherwise, find another farm."
Bart crinkled the paper lightly in his hand, staring down the woman. Then he motioned with his head for the boys to follow, and they moved on to the distribution station where half a dozen young women were taking tickets and handing out bundles. They were in line again, and Simone took the opportunity to scan the trees. Her heart nearly jumped out of her chest.
The trees were lined with black, their beating wings swaying the trees like gusts of wind. Then, like a gust itself, the sound hit her. Cawing and tweeting and croaking, the sound chopped at the air. Could no one else hear it? A muddle of voices roiled around her, people talking, gossiping, haggling, yelling about it was all taking so long. They weren't paying attention.
She looked straight up, watching the scattering of black dots cut through the pink and yellow of the clouds. Vultures and eagles and hawks. Circling, watching, waiting. She whirled around, her breath growing faster, trying to see if anyone else had noticed the danger in the sky. No one looked up. They only had eyes for food.
She reached up and tugged at her mother's sleeve, nearly screaming through her teeth. Her mother pulled away, looking down with classic scorn. "Look, I know you're hungry Simone, but you're just going to have to wait. Talk with Alex, he's not..."
The derision drained from her face as she noticed the terror in Simone's face, the urgency of her little finger pointed up into the sky. She looked up, shielding her eyes from the last beams of sun piercing the trees.
"Huh. Y'know, I think...I think those are first birds I've seen in a few days." She pulled at her husband's sleeve.
"Herman, have you seen any birds for the last few days?"
Her father turned around, a beam of light gleaming off his partially bald head. "No, I don't think I have. Don't think I've seen any animals at all frankly." He looked up, the wrinkles around his eyes disappearing as his jaw drooped down.
"Certainly not that many."
She was jumping up and down now, mewling like a dog choking on its own leash, pointing at the trees and all those greedy eyes looking down at them. Then came the first scream, somewhere to her right. A woman's scream, mixed with cawing. Then man yelled far to her left, followed by the discharge of a shotgun.
A wet blanket shrouded her hearing, everything muffled and covered by a fierce whining as people began to move. Her mother grabbed her arm hard and jerked her along, trying to push through the crowd and get to Bart's cart. Another gun went off, not a shotgun. Four small pops. More people screamed.
A man twice the size of her mother barreled into them, nearly tearing her from her mother's grip. Her mom kicked the man violently and pulled her to her feet. She could see the cart now, but she couldn't see any of the birds. She couldn't...
"Oh God, here they come!"
She couldn't see who yelled, or where they were pointing, but she could see the heads turn as they stopped running and took in the new threat. Simone followed their eyes and her bladder finally let go, the warmth spreading down her legs as her blood ran cold. It almost seemed like a wave at first, obscured by beach heat and the distortions of spray, rolling over the grass. Then she saw the wings, the orange of beak, the flapping feathers.
They were flying low, hundreds of them, birds of all types shooting towards them in a tight formation. Some people started inching away, then running outright, leaving their corn and bags behind. Others pushed through to the front, brandishing shotguns, rifles, pistols. They clicked off their safeties as they got clear, loaded shells, leveled their weapons at the approaching horde.
They fired in a poor attempt at unison, some getting their shots off a half-second late. Screeches pierced the air as birds fell away, feathers puffing into the air like the exhaust of a massive machine. The birds continued, never losing momentum.
Another round of shot rang out, tighter, more precise. A great swath of birds fell out from the front, sending out a great red mist of blood that made Simone gag in spite of her fear. They were almost on them, only about a hundred feet away. The gunmen readied for another round of shots, a confidence growing in their faces.
They never saw it coming.
Birds rained like a silent wave from the sky, beaks cracking against skulls and talons raking eyes. Guns rang out again with a few scattered shots, but all Simone could hear were the screams. She was low to the ground, the birds up above preoccupied with the taller adults. She saw her father rip a crow off her mother's head as she struggled to pull her pistol out of her bag, its talons taking a lock of hair and a small patch of skin with it.
A woman fell to the ground next her, screaming like a bobcat, a great horned owl tearing out her left eye. Simone screamed as the optic nerve same loose, and then the rest of the birds were on them. They weaved through the crowd from all angles, pinballing between victims before latching on and ripping.
A crow pecked at her brother's ear, drawing blood. He tried to swat it, but it grab his arms, talons digging in. She flailed, punching the thing twice in the wings before it fell off, then stomping on it in a frantic rage. Ribs popped as she pressed, feeling its soft bones crumble.
She got her hands up in time to save her eyes as three more birds, blue jays and cardinals, darted at her face. Talons slashed at her knees and ankles, sending her to the ground. She covered her face and they pecked at her sides. She tucked in her elbows and they slashed at her neck.
She covered up her neck with her hands and beaks quested for her stomach, the backs of her knees. She curled up into the fetal position and start to cry, the noise never heard among the screams and squawks and pleas and death. Lex was near her, crying for their mother, but she could barely hear him.
There was only the pain, slowly growing with with every cut in her arm, every digging gash in her legs and side. There was nothing but the encroaching certainty of death, and a final thought: Where was Sam?
It took her a minute to realize that it had stopped, that the overwhelming pain across her body wasn't being added to. She could still hear screams and squawking, but their were other sounds now, ones she didn't recognize it at first. Then it slid across her palm, warm and soft like a cherished family memory. Fur, long fur. She heard a noise, a chirp. Not a bird's chirp, one only made by one creature.
She opened her eyes and saw orange and white, followed by the telltale yellow-green of his eyes. Sam pushed his head past her hand and observed her wounds, sniffing but not licking. She sat up a bit, looking at him.
He continued inspecting her, sniffing at the patches of blood on her clothes. Then he looked her right in the eyes and meowed deeply, the kind of meow he'd give when they were late with his dinner, then wiggled his ears a few times and swiped at the air with his paws. He'd never seen him do anything like that in her life.
Before she could think about it a crow swooped down and Sam whirled, swatting it out of the air and pouncing. The bird squawked in pain and Sam let out a yowl like the one he made when a black cat tried it to make its home in their crawlspace, clamping down on the thing's neck and wrenching back and forth. Finally he got his weight over the bird and pressed down, the crow ceasing all sounds.
Only then did she think to look up, to see if the rest of her family was all right. Lex was fine, standing next her bloodied mother and father and looking around dumbfounded as their wounds slowly bled. Cats and dogs everywhere, hundreds of them, maybe even thousands. Biting and ripping birds off of people. Leaping into the air and snatching more. Forming large circles around people as they gathered themselves.
The birds were starting to retreat, shedding off the crowd in waves but not quite taking to the sky. They hung around, swooping down at the group of people defending the barn. Only then did she the strangest thing of that day, one she would never forget.
Among the swarm of birds were jays, crows, cardinals, finches, owls, hawks, even vultures and a few herons. No eagles however, none of the great birds of prey shooting down with their massive talons. They came down in teams of four, bald eagles and others, holding what looked like nets and square pieces of tarpaulin.
Birds flew around them wildly, swooping down on the men with guns but always keeping themselves between the humans and the eagles. The eagle teams came to rest at the carts of corn, where crows and other birds frantically pushed ears of corn into the netting.
One man seemed to figure out what was going on and took aim at an eagle with his rifle, but a black vulture swooped in and took the shot in its side. A magpie attacked his face a moment later, sending him and his gun to the ground. Two tabbies pounced on the thrashing thing before it could get at his eyes, but the eagles were taking flight now, their great wings beating heavily as the forced the sagging net into the air.
After a hitching, wobbling start they gained a bit of altitude and joined the line of teams flying away to the east like a convoy, their flapping forms barely visible in the dying light.
Simone walked up to her family, hugging her brother fiercely. None of them could speak. They could only stare out at the carnage, mumbling to themselves. Bart's children hugged their children as they wailed, looking down at the tattered corpse of their grandfather. His shirt and jacket had been ripped to shreds, his back a bloody mess of stringy muscle and chunks of gore, like he had used himself as a human shield. She could see his spine poking out from between his shoulder blades.
Jason and Ruth knelt over a small form, the clothes caked with mud and the once frizzy hair matted with blood. Alicia had no eyes. She looked up at her parents, her father's dead eyes and white-knuckle fists, her mother's pursed mouth as she looked past the death and picked out the baskets of corn that remained, then began to slowly cry.
Lex hugged her back, whispering something she couldn't hear. At some point Sam came back, pushing his head into her hand. She felt safe stroking that soft fur, hearing the gentle rumble of his purring. But safe for how long? She knew the truth, even if she couldn't accept it.
The birds would be back.
